Marmion. When you are landed, and a little past
The Stygian ferry, you your eyes shall cast
And spy some busy at their wheel, and these
Are three old women, called the Destinies.
(Cupid and Psyche, iii. 259-262.)
Chamberlayne. But ere the weak Euriolus (for he
This hapless stranger was) again could be
By strength supported, base Amarus, who
Could think no more than priceless thanks was due
For all his dangerous pains, more beastly rude
Than untamed Indians, basely did exclude
That noble guest: which being with sorrow seen
By Ammida, whose prayers and tears had been
His helpless advocates, she gives in charge
To her Ismander—till that time enlarge
Her than restrained desires, he entertain
Her desolate and wandering friend. Nor vain
Were these commands, his entertainment being
Such as observant love thought best agreeing
To her desires.
(Pharonnida, IV. iii. 243-256.)
(The same remark applies here as to Browne. Some of these poets are indeed great "apostrophators," such things as "t'" for "to," "b'" for "by," and "'s" for "his" being common. But these uglinesses are generally resorted to in order to attain or keep the strict decasyllabic. Chalkhill (an actual Elizabethan, if he was anything) is less shy of at least apparent trisyllabics, as in "bĕĭng drīv|en," "ex|pĭăte thēir.|" The double rhyme of "sea" to "they" and "seas" to "please" is worth noticing; v. sup. Rule 34, p. [34].)
XXVI. The Stopped Heroic Couplet (1580-1660)
(a) Spenser (Mother Hubberd's Tale), v. sup. p. [62].
(b) Drayton (Heroical Epistles, "Suffolk to Margaret"):
We all do breathe upon this earthly ball,
Likewise one Heav'n encompasseth us all;
No banishment can be to us assigned
Who doth retain a true resolved mind;
Man in himself a little world doth bear,
His soul the monarch ever ruling there;
Wherever then his body doth remain
He is a king that in himself doth reign.
(Here all the characteristics of the eighteenth-century couplet may be found—the central cæsura or split, the balance of the two halves, the completion of sense in the couplet and almost in the line.)