Although there are not many parodies extant of Spenser’s poetry, yet the beautiful metre which he invented, and used with such success in The Faerie Queene, has been since imitated, or adopted by many of our leading poets. This will be seen by the following list of works, written in the Spenserian stanza, which has been compiled with great care, by Mr. Jonathan Bouchier, of Ropley.
- Allan’s ‘Bridal of Caolchaiarn’ and ‘Last Deer of Brenn Doran’ (or Dran).
- Beattie’s ‘Minstrel.’
- Bedingfield ‘The Education of Achilles.’
- William Lisle Bowles ‘Childe Harold’s Last Pilgrimage,’ six stanzas.
- Burns’s ‘Cotter’s Saturday Night.’
- W. C. Bryant ‘The Ages.’
- Byron’s ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.’
- Campbell’s ‘Gertrude of Wyoming.’
- Campbell’s ‘Chaucer and Windsor.’
- Cooper’s ‘Purgatory of Suicides.’
- Edward’s ‘Tour of the Dove.’
- Hood’s ‘Irish Schoolmaster.’
- Howitt’s ‘Desolation of Eyam.’
- Keats’s ‘Imitation of Spenser’ (his first, or nearly his first verses).
- Keats’s ‘Eve of St. Agnes.’
- Keats’s ‘The Cap and Bells.’
- Keble’s ‘Mourners following the Cross.’
- William Julius Mickle ‘The Concubine’ (title afterwards altered to ‘Sir Martyne’), a poem in two cantos.
- Neale’s ‘Edom.’
- Read’s (American) ‘New Village.’
- Miss Frances Rolleston, ‘The Pilgrimage of Harmonia,’ 1874.
- Sir W. Scott, Fitztraver’s Song in ‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel,’ canto vi.
- ‘Vision of Don Roderick,’ and introductory stanzas to each canto of the ‘Lady of the Lake,’ and the ‘Lord of the Isles.’
- Shelley’s ‘Revolt of Islam’ (sometimes called ‘Laon and Cythna’), and ‘Adonais.’
- Shenstone’s ‘Schoolmistress.’
- Smith, Alexander ‘Lady Barbara.’
- Edmund Neale Smith, obiit 1710: ‘Thales: a Monody, sacred to the memory of Dr. Pococke. In imitation of Spenser.’—First published in 1751, forty years after Smith’s death.
- ‘Psyche, or the Great Metamorphosis’ (query author), in Dodsley’s ‘Collection of Poems by Several Hands,’ ed. 1775, vol. iii.
- Southey ‘A Tale of Paraguay.’
- Tennyson’s ‘Lotos-Eaters’ (introduction).
- Thomson’s ‘Castle of Indolence.’
- Mrs. Tighe’s ‘Psyche.’
- Walker, William Sidney: ‘Wandering Thoughts.’
- West, Gilbert ‘Education’ and ‘On the Abuse of Travelling.’
- White, Kirke ‘Christiad.’
- Wiffen’s Translation of Tasso’s ‘Jerusalem Delivered.’
- Isaac William’s, ‘Rule of Faith’ (‘Lyra Apostolica’).
- Wilson’s ‘Children’s Dance’ and ‘Scholar’s Funeral.’
- Wordsworth’s ‘Guilt and Sorrow,’ an imitation of Thomson, written in 1802.
- Worsley’s Homer’s ‘Iliad.’
- Worsley’s Homer’s ‘Odyssey.’
The Alley.
(A Burlesque imitation of Spenser.)
In every town, where Thamis rolls his tyde,
A narrow pass there is, with houses low;
Where, ever and anon, the stream is eyed,
And many a boat soft sliding to and fro.
There oft are heard the notes of infant woe,