"In every language now in Europe spoke
By nations which the Roman empire broke,
The rellish of the Muse consists in rime,
One verse must meete another like a chime....
In many changes these may be exprest,
But those that joyne most simply run the best:
Their forme surpassing farre the fetter'd staves,
Vaine care, and needlesse repetition saves."
(Chalmer's English Poets, vol. vi. p. 31.)[22]
Rough Boreas in Æolian prison laid,
And those dry blasts which gathered clouds invade,
Outflies the South with dropping wings; who shrouds
His terrible aspect in pitchy clouds.
His white hair streams, his swol'n beard big with showers;
Mists bind his brows, rain from his bosom pours.
As with his hands the hanging clouds he crushed,
They roared, and down in showers together rushed.
All-colored Iris, Juno's messenger,
To weeping clouds doth nourishment confer.
The corn is lodged, the husbandmen despair,
Their long year's labor lost, with all their care.
Jove, not content with his ethereal rages,
His brother's auxiliaric floods engages.
(George Sandys: Ovid's Metamorphoses, bk. i. 1621.)
On the significance of Sandys's verse, see preceding notes on Waller, and the note on its possible relation to Pope, p. [201] below.
My eye, descending from the hill, surveys
Where Thames amongst the wanton valleys strays;
Thames, the most loved of all the Ocean's sons
By his old sire, to his embraces runs,
Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea,
Like mortal life to meet eternity....
No unexpected inundations spoil
The mower's hopes, nor mock the ploughman's toil,
But godlike his unwearied bounty flows,
First loves to do, then loves the good he does;
Nor are his blessings to his banks confined,
But free and common as the sea or wind....
O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!
Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull,
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full.
(Sir John Denham: Cooper's Hill. 1642.)
"Denham," says Mr. Gosse, "was the first writer to adopt the precise manner of versification introduced by Waller." (Ward's English Poets, vol. ii. p. 279.) On his praise by Dryden and Pope, see notes on p. [188] above. The last four lines of the specimen here given have been universally admired.