Philomel with melody Sing in our sweet lullaby; Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby! Come our lovely lady nigh! So good-night, with lullaby. IV. Onomatopoeia.-The sound of the verse may imitate or suggest the meaning conveyed by the words. (i) To indicate movement: Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn. Merrily, merrily, shall I live now. And even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea. On a sudden open fly With impetuous recoil and jarring sound Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate Harsh thunder. This imitative harmony is called onomatopoe'ia; the lines are called onomatopoet'ic lines. EXERCISE 1. Point out the nature of (i) the rime, (ii) the alliteration, and (iii) any vowel harmonies in the following: (1) It ceased yet still the sails made on A pleasant noise till noon, A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, That to the sleeping woods all night (2) Behold her silent in the field, Yon solitary Highland lass! Reaping and singing by herself; Alone she cuts and binds the grain, Is overflowing with the sound. (3) The harbor-bay was clear as glass But on the bay the moonlight lay And the shadow of the moon. The rock shone bright, the Kirk no less That stands above the rock: The moonlight steeped in silentness The steady weathercock. (4) O world! O life! O time! On whose last steps I climb Trembling at that where I had stood before; No more Oh, never more! Out of the day and night A joy has taken flight; Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar, Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight No more Oh, never more! 2. Study the imitative harmony in the following: The descent of the Knight Bedivere down the cliffs. Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves And barren chasms, and all to left and right The bare black cliff clang'd round him, as he based His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang Sharp smitten with the dint of armèd heels- And on a sudden, lo, the level lake, And the long glories of the winter moon! CHAPTER IV. STANZA-FORMS. LESSON LXXVI. Combinations of Verses.-As the stress-groups of the sentence (see p. 296) join in the rhythm of the whole sentence, so the rhythmic movements of the verses are part of the larger rhythm of the stanza. Read aloud the following verses so that you express a metrical movement dominating the whole stanza: I heard a thousand blended notes While in a grove I sate reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts The recurring combination of verses united in a musical whole constitutes a stanza. The combination is usually marked by rime, and by separation of the written or printed lines into groups. NOTE. A stanza is frequently called a verse. Strictly used, a verse means only a metrical line. 1. Couplet. The simplest form of the stanza is two lines rimed: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or touch not the Pierian spring. Rimed couplets of iambic pentameter verse are called heroic couplets. Couplets are usually printed as a continuous poem. II. Triplets.-Three lines may be joined and rime aaa: Like an æolian harp that wakes No certain air, but overtakes Far thought with music that it makes. NOTE. When the first and third lines rime and the second introduces the riming pair of the following stanza, we have terza rima, used in Dante's Divine Comedy. III. Quatrain.-Four-line stanzas have three forms. (i) The second and fourth lines rime (aa): O my Luve's like a red, red rose That's sweetly played in tune. The combination of a four-accent iambic line alternating with a three-accent, with the second and fourth lines riming, constitutes the ballad stanza, the most popular form of English verse. The first and third lines are also often rimed:— O Brignall banks are wild and fair (ii) The riming lines (iambic tetrameter) are the first and fourth and the second and third (abba) : Old yew that graspest at the stones Thy roots are wrapped about the bones. This form of stanza is called sometimes the In Me moriam stanza. (iii) The riming lines are the first and second and third and fourth (a a b b): Life! I know not what thou art, But know that thou and I must part; I own to me's a secret yet. NOTE. In hymns the ballad stanza is called common metre; the quatrain in which the first, second, and fourth lines are trimeter iambic with the third line tetrameter, with alternate rimes, is short metre; the quatrain in which all the lines are iambic pentameter, with alternate rimes, is long metre. Combinations of Stanzas.-Combinations of the foregoing stanzas are very numerous; e.g., the double quatrain: When we two parted In silence and tears Half broken-hearted To sever for years. Pale grew thy cheek and cold, Colder thy kiss; Truly that hour foretold Sorrow to this. Stanzas of unusual character can be described by the number of the lines; e.g., a seven-line or nine-line stanza, etc. Spenserian Stanza.-One of the most elaborate stanzas is that used by Spenser in his Faerie Queene, and imitated later by Beattie, Byron, and others. Cf. Byron's Childe Harold, IV., i: I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs; I saw from out the wave her structure rise As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: A thousand years their cloudy wings expand, O'er the far times, where many a subject land Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles! |