§ 301. The Spenserian stanza stands in unmistakable connexion with Spenser’s highly artistic and elaborate Epithalamium stanza (Globe Ed. 587–91) inasmuch as the last line, That all the woods may answer and their echo ring, repeated in each stanza as a burden together with the word sing which ends the preceding verse, has six measures, the rest of the stanza consisting of three- and five-foot lines.
Like the Spenserian stanza, the Epithalamium stanza has given rise to numerous imitations.
It cannot be said that one fixed form of stanza is employed throughout the whole extent of Spenser’s Epithalamium. It rather consists of two main forms of stanza, viz. one of eighteen lines (st. i, ii, iv, v, vi, x, xvi, xxi, xxiii), and one of nineteen lines (st. iii, vii, viii, ix, xi, xii, xiii, xiv, xvii, xviii, xix, xx, xxii), whereas one stanza, the fifteenth, has only seventeen lines. In the arrangement of rhymes there are also sporadic varieties: cf. e.g. iv and ix.
The arrangement of verse, however, is always similar in both groups. The main part of the stanza consists of five-foot verses, the succession of which is interrupted three times by three-foot ones, the final verse of the stanza having six measures. In the stanza of eighteen lines the usual arrangement is a b a b c5 c3 d c d e5 e3 f g g f5 g3 r5 R6. In those of nineteen lines it is a b a b c5 c3 d c d e5 e3 f g g f h5 h3 r5 R6. The scheme of the stanza of seventeen lines is a b a b c5 c3 d c d e f f g h5 h3 r5 R6.
The two following stanzas (ii, iii) may be quoted as specimens of the two chief forms:
Early, before the worlds light-giving lampe
His golden beame upon the hils doth spred,
Having disperst the nights unchearefull dampe,
Doe ye awake; and, with fresh lustyhed,
Go to the bowre of my beloved love,