than is this from In Memoriam : "Our little systems have their day; They have their day and cease to be: The SPENSERIAN STANZA, historically celebrated as the measure of Spenser's Faerie Queene, is an elaborately constructed stanza of nine lines, eight of them iambic pentameter, the ninth an Alexandrine; the rhymes disposed after the unvarying model a b a b b c b c c. There is a peculiar effect of artistry about the stanza, well corresponding to the elaborate grace of the "poet's poet." The stanza has been employed by Worsley, with more elegance than Homeric spirit, in his translation of the Odyssey. EXAMPLE. The following, from The Faerie Queene, will illustrate the Spenserian model: "The Lyon would not leave her desolate, But with her went along, as a strong gard Of her chast person, and a faythfull mate Of her sad troubles and misfortunes hard : Still, when she slept, he kept both watch and ward; And, when she wakt, he wayted diligent, With humble service to her will prepard: One The most elaborate stanza form of all, perhaps, and one of the most esteemed, is the SONNET. This is a fourteen-lined stanza constituting in itself a complete poem. Its measure is iambic pentameter, and its rhymes follow a fixed succession, though there are several slightly differing models. standard scheme of rhymes is: abba abbac decde. turn of the sentiment occurs at or near the end of the eighth line; wherefore the first eight lines are called the octette, and the last six the sestette. Sometimes these two parts are separated by a space, as if they were two stanzas. Though derived from the Italian, the sonnet has in English become a thoroughly congenial vehicle for a brief range of meditative or concentrated sentiment. Within its limits it is adapted to wellnigh all varieties of expression, being equally natural for sweep and point, grace and strength. A sonnet, as has been said, is a complete poem; but sonnets may be written in sequence, forming a series of poems more or less closely connected and continuous. Some of the most celebrated sonnet-sequences in our language are Shakespeare's Sonnets, Mrs. Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese, and Rossetti's House of Life. EXAMPLE. The following, Wordsworth's Sonnet on the Sonnet, will both exemplify the form and define the value of this stanza form: "Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned, Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp, It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand II. THE LIFE OF VERSE.1 In the writing of poetry there is always, according to its dominant character, a surge, an impulse, in one of two directions either toward the more soaring and melodious sweep of music, or toward the freer more informal movement of prose. Obedience to this impulse is not to be regarded as a 1" That opposition which is the life of verse.". - STEVENSON, ut supra, p. 254. license, as if it were the transgression of some rule; rather it is a natural modulation of key, called for by the descriptive or emotional demand of the sentiment, which exerts an attraction on the metrical scheme, and without invading its integrity makes it limpid and flexible to a very appreciable degree. Some account of these modulations, therefore, is necessary to a fundamental understanding of poetic rhythm; while also it will prepare the way to a clearer apprehension of the rhythm of prose. I. Overtones of Musical Rhythm. - As soon as we go from blank verse or plain recitative to poetry of a more lyric kind, we become aware, with the greater intensity in the sentiment, of a greater sweep and freedom in the verse. The tune, the rhythmic scheme, is decidedly more marked and obvious; the verse more suggestive of song. When, however, we apply the classic standards to the scanning of it, with their unvarying sequences of short and long syllables, we run against characteristics of metre that fit very awkwardly if at all. Exceptions, variations, accommodations, become so numerous as wellnigh to invalidate the rule. Yet this we know is not the fault of the poetry, which speaks for itself; it is rather the inadequacy of a too rigid nomenclature, which like a Procrustean bed can make its phenomena fit its conventional schemes only by much crowding and stretching, and even then only by leaving its interpretations lifeless. There is, as we shall see,1 much pliancy, much freedom of interchange and blending, in the more recitative or dissyllabic measures; even here we shall find some pauses, prolongations, and condensations of quantities, hard to explain. In the trisyllabic feet, which having a more marked lilt are more distinctively the lyric metres, these anomalies become 1 See next section, Pliancy of the Recitative Measures. nothing short of baffling. To account for them rightly, while we need not abandon the current system of prosody so far as it will go, we must have recourse to the terms and distinctions of music; and this is just, because the lyric movement, according to its intensity, is really an advance toward song; on the conventional metre adopted for the basis it superinduces an overtone of musical rhythm. Committing ourselves frankly to the principles of musical rhythm, we find the baffling phenomena of lyric metre, which in truth are not anomalous or erratic, falling into ordered and self-justifying system. ILLUSTRATION. How much more satisfactory is a musical than a prosodical interpretation of some measures may be seen from Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade. Measured by the only metrical unit open to us, the dactylic, it jerks along in a strange sort of hippity-hop movement: “Half ǎ leǎgue, | hālf ă leăgue, | Half ǎ leǎgue | ōnwārd;” | which after all does not catch the tune, - the metre coming to our ears not as longs balanced by coupled shorts but as a palpable triple time. Put it now in the musical rhythm it naturally suggests, and all its syllabic values and quantities become clear : All in the val - ley of Death Rode the six hun dred. Phenomena to be explained. - In order to realize how far short of its full duty our current prosody comes, it may be well to recount here the most salient of the characteristics that stand yet in need of explanation. These are taken not from exceptional but from everyday poetic usage. 1. At the outset, the existing metrical system, with its meagre choice of longs and shorts, is not a true because not 1 This ought perhaps to be rather than ; but the quarter note measure is here used as more generally familiar. a delicate standard of measure; as a matter of fact, syllables are of all lengths, not absolutely long and short but relatively longer and shorter. This fact should have some means of notation and record. 2. The last foot of a line is often, and other feet are sometimes, left incomplete; a single syllable may represent them. Is there, or is there not, something — a pause or a prolongation to fill the gap? 3. The first syllable not infrequently reads like a kind of tag or remainder from the last foot of the previous line, or as if it were a short preliminary to the serious business of its own line. 4. The interior feet are much changed about; anapests and iambics, dactyls and trochees, freely interchanging. Indeed, so constantly do the trisyllabic feet interchange and blend with one another that some have doubted whether they were distinct measures; and others, yielding the whole question of classic metres, have introduced instead the scanning of verse by accents. ILLUSTRATIVE NOTE. - Coleridge's Christabel has already been mentioned on p. 177 as an alleged innovation in metre; the innovation consisted in keeping four accented positions, in lines varying from seven to twelve syllables in length; thus: — "I wón der❜d whát | might áil | the bírd;| For nó thing neár | it coúld | I seé, | Save the gráss | and green hérbs | undernéath | the old trée." This explains the number of feet; but the controlling lilt, the anapestic tune, is not accounted for. To show how much elision and interchange may be admitted without impairing the underlying measure, take the following old nursery rhyme, the tune of which is set by the first word "Remember," making an amphibrach scheme (~ — U):— "Remember, | rěmēmber, | the fifth of | Nŏvēmbĕr, | Gunpowder trea- | son plōt I see no reason | whỹ günpow|dĕr treason | |