English: Composition and Literature

by W. F. Webster

An elegy is a serious poem pervaded by a feeling of melancholy. It is generally written to commemorate the death of some friend. Milton’s “Lycidas” and Gray’s “Elegy in a Country Churchyard” are examples of this form of lyric.

A sonnet is a lyric that deals with a single thought, idea, or sentiment in a fixed metrical form. The sonnet always contains fourteen lines. It has, [286] too, a very definite rhyme scheme. Some of the best English sonnets have been written by Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and Mrs. Browning.

Dramatic poetry presents a course of human events, and is generally designed to be spoken on the stage. Because such poetry presents human character in action, the term “dramatic” has come to be applied to any poetry having this quality. Many of Browning’s poems are dramatic in this sense. In the first sense of the word, dramatic poetry includes tragedy and comedy.

Tragedy is a drama in which the diction is dignified, the movement impressive, and the ending unhappy.

Comedy is a drama of a light and amusing character, with a happy conclusion to its plot.

Exercises in Metres. Enough of each poem is given below so that the kind of metre can be determined. Always name the verse form and write the verse scheme. Some hard work will be necessary to work out the irregular lines, but it is only by work on these that any ability in scanning can be gained. Always read a stanza two or three times to get the swing of the rhythm. Remember the silences, and the substitutions that may be made.

1. “I stood on the bridge at midnight
2. As the clocks were striking the hour,
3. And the moon rose over the city,
4. Behind the dark church tower.
5. “Among the long black rafters
6. The wavering shadows lay,
7. And the current that came from the ocean
8. Seemed to lift and bear them away.”
9. “All things are new;—the buds, the leaves,
10. That gild the elm-tree’s nodding crest,
11. [287] And even the nest beneath the eaves;—
12. There are no birds in last year’s nest!”
13. “Meanwhile we did our nightly chores,—
14. Brought in the wood from out of doors,
15. Littered the stalls, and from the mows
16. Raked down the herd’s-grass for the cows;
17. Heard the horse whinnying for his corn;
18. And, sharply clashing horn on horn,
19. Impatient down the stanchion rows
20. The cattle shake their walnut bows;
21. While, peering from his early perch
22. Upon the scaffold’s pole of birch,
23. The cock his crested helmet bent
24. And down his querulous challenge sent.”
25. “You know, we French stormed Ratisbon:
26. A mile or so away,
27. On a little mound, Napoleon
28. Stood on our storming day;
29. With neck out-thrust, you fancy how,
30. Legs wide, arms locked behind,
31. As if to balance the prone brow
32. Oppressive with its mind.”
33. “Come, read to me some poem,
34. Some simple and heartfelt lay,
35. That shall soothe this restless feeling,
36. And banish the thoughts of day.
37. “Not from the grand old masters,
38. Not from the bards sublime,
39. Whose distant footsteps echo
40. Through the corridors of Time.
41. “For, like strains of martial music,
42. Their mighty thoughts suggest
43. [288] Life’s endless toil and endeavor;
44. And to-night I long for rest.
45. “Read from some humbler poet
46. Whose songs gushed from his heart,
47. As showers from the clouds of summer,
48. Or tears from the eyelids start;
49. “Who through long days of labor,
50. And nights devoid of ease,
51. Still heard in his soul the music
52. Of the wonderful melodies.”
53. “Hickory, dickery, dock,
54. The mouse ran up the clock;
55. The clock struck one,
56. And the mouse ran down;
57. Hickory, dickery, dock.”
58. “Two brothers had the maiden, and she thought,
59. Within herself: ‘I would I were like them;
60. For then I might go forth alone, to trace
61. The mighty rivers downward to the sea,
62. And upward to the brooks that, through the year,
63. Prattle to the cool valleys. I would know
64. What races drink their waters; how their chiefs
65. Bear rule, and how men worship there, and how
66. They build, and to what quaint device they frame,
67. Where sea and river meet, their stately ships;
68. What flowers are in their gardens, and what trees
69. Bear fruit within their orchards; in what garb
70. Their bowmen meet on holidays, and how
71. Their maidens bind the waist and braid the hair.’”

(In this quotation we have blank verse; that is, verse that does not rhyme. It is iambic pentameter,—the most common verse in great English poetry. What poems are you familiar with that use this verse-form?)

1. [289]
2. “A wet sheet and a flowing sea,
3. A wind that follows fast
4. And fills the rustling sails
5. And bends the gallant mast;
6. And bends the gallant mast, my boys,
7. While like the eagle free
8. Away the good ship flies, and leaves
9. Old England on the lee.
10. “O for a soft and gentle wind;
11. I heard a fair one cry;
12. But give to me the snoring breeze
13. And white waves heaving high;
14. And white waves heaving high, my lads,
15. The good ship tight and free—
16. The world of waters is our home,
17. And merry men are we.
18. “There’s tempest in yon horned moon,
19. And lightning in yon cloud;
20. But hark the music, mariners!
21. The wind is piping loud;
22. The wind is piping loud, my boys,
23. The lightning flashes free—
24. While the hollow oak our palace is,
25. Our heritage the sea.”
26. “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
27. Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
28. While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
29. As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door—
30. ‘’T is some visitor,’ I muttered, ‘tapping at my chamber door—
31. Only this, and nothing more.’”
32. [290] “Somewhat back from the village street
33. Stands the old-fashioned country-seat,
34. Across its antique portico
35. Tall poplar trees their shadows throw;
36. And from its station in the hall
37. An ancient timepiece says to all,—
38. ‘Forever—never!
39. Never—forever!’”
40. “Listen, my children, and you shall hear
41. Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
42. On the eighteenth of April, in seventy-five;
43. Hardly a man is now alive
44. Who remembers that famous day and year.”
45. “Sweet and low, sweet and low,
46. Wind of the western sea,
47. Low, low, breathe and blow,
48. Wind of the western sea!
49. Over the rolling waters go,
50. Come from the dying moon, and blow,
51. Blow him again to me;
52. While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.
53. “Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,
54. Father will come to thee soon;
55. Rest, rest, on mother’s breast,
56. Father will come to thee soon;
57. Father will come to his babe in the nest—
58. Silver sails all out of the west
59. Under the silver moon:
60. Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep.”
61. “See what a lovely shell,
62. Small and pure as a pearl,
63. Lying close to my foot,
64. Frail, but a work divine,
65. [291] Made so fairily well
66. With delicate spire and whorl,
67. How exquisitely minute,
68. A miracle of design!”

(If the pupils have Palgrave’s “Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics,” they have a great fund of excellent material illustrating all varieties of metrical variation. There are very few pieces of literature that illustrate so many varieties of metre as Wordsworth’s “Ode on the Intimations of Immortality.”)