And make the Age to come my own?
I shall like Beast and common People die,
Unless you write my Elegy."
Section II.—Of the poems composed in stanzas;
and first, of the stanzas consisting of three and of four verses.
In the poems composed of stanzas, each stanza contains a certain number of verses, consisting for the most part of a different number of syllables; and a poem that consists of several stanzas we generally call an ode; and this is lyric poetry.
But we must not forget to observe, that our ancient poets frequently made use of intermixed rhyme in their heroic poems, which they disposed into stanzas and cantos. Thus the "Troilus and Cressida" of Chaucer is composed in stanzas consisting of seven verses; the "Fairy Queen" of Spenser in stanzas of nine, &c.; and this they took from the Italians, whose heroic poems generally consist in stanzas of eight. But this is now wholly laid aside, and Davenant, who composed his "Gondibert" in stanzas of four verses in alternate rhyme, was the last that followed their example of intermingling rhymes in heroic poetry.
The stanzas employed in our poetry cannot consist of less than three, and are seldom of more than twelve verses, except in Pindaric odes, where the stanzas are different from one another in number of verses, as shall be shown.
But to treat of all the different stanzas that are employed or may be admitted in our poetry would be a labour no less tedious than useless; it being easy to demonstrate that they may be varied almost to an infinity, that would be different from one another, either in the number of the verses of each stanza, or in the number of the syllables of each verse; or, lastly, in the various intermingling of the rhyme. I shall therefore confine myself to mention only such as are most frequently used by the best of our modern poets. And first of the stanzas consisting of three verses.
In the stanzas of three verses, or triplets, the verses of each stanza rhyme to one another, and are either heroic; as,
"Nothing, thou elder Brother even to Shade! }