(Cowley: Of Solitude. ab. 1650.)
To-night this sunset spreads two golden wings
Cleaving the western sky;
Winged too with wind it is, and winnowings
Of birds; as if the day's last hour in rings
Of strenuous flight must die.
(Rossetti: Sunset Wings. 1881.)
Ye dainty Nymphs, that in this blessed brook
Do bathe your breast,
Forsake your watery bowers, and hither look
At my request:
And eke you Virgins that on Parnasse dwell,
Whence floweth Helicon, the learned well,
Help me to blaze
Her worthy praise,
Which in her sex doth all excel.
(Spenser: The Shepherd's Calendar, April. 1579.)
You, that will a wonder know,
Go with me,
Two suns in a heaven of snow
Both burning be;
All they fire, that do but eye them,
But the snow's unmelted by them.
(Carew: In Praise of his Mistress. ab. 1635.)
Go, lovely Rose!
Tell her, that wastes her time and me,
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.
(Waller: Go, lovely Rose. ab. 1650.)
The use of short lines somewhat intricately introduced among longer ones, is characteristic of the stanzas of the lyrical poets of the first part of the seventeenth century. It may perhaps be traced in part to the influence of Donne.