5 NONSENSE SING impassionate Soul! of Mohammed the complicate story: Sing, unfearful of Man, groaning and ending in care. Short the Command and the Toil, but endlessly mighty the Glory! Standing aloof if it chance, vainly our enemy's scare: What tho' we wretchedly fare, wearily drawing the Breath—, Malice in wonder may stare; merrily move we to Death. Now first published from an MS. 6 A PLAINTIVE MOVEMENT [11' 4 114 | 10' 6' 4' 10] Go little Pipe! for ever I must leave thee, Never, ah never! must I more receive thee? Well, thou art gone! and what remains behind, Hide with sere leaves my Grave's undaisied Slope. (?) October, 1814. [It would be better to alter this metre 10′ 6 6′ 10 | 11′ 4 11′ 4: and still more plaintive if the 1st and 4th were 11' 11' as well as the 5th and 7th.] Now first published from an MS. 7 AN EXPERIMENT FOR A METRE When thy Beauty appears, In its graces and airs, All bright as an Angel new dight from the Sky, Now first published from an MS. 8 NONSENSE VERSES [AN EXPERIMENT FOR A METRE] Go vanish into Night! Each Brow be smooth and bright, To-day be Joy! and Sorrow Devoid of Blame (The widow'd Dame) Shall welcome be to-morrow. Thou, too, dull Night! may'st come unchid: With turrets each a Pyramid ;— For the Tears that we shed, are Gladness, Now first published from an MS. or 9 NONSENSE [AN EXPERIMENT FOR A METRE] I WISH on earth to sing Tho' weak our cause yet strong his Grace: Where not a Blast could stir: For Jove had his Almighty Presence lent: The radiant light of Joy, and Hope's forgotten Trace. On rushing wing while sea-mews roar, Now first published from an MS. 10 EXPERIMENTS IN METRE THERE in some darksome shade And there forgotten fade. First published from an MS. in 1893. 11 ONCE again, sweet Willow, wave thee! Bend, and in yon streamlet-lave thee! 1. Four Trochees/. 2. One spondee, Iambic \. 3. Four Trochees 1. 4. Repeated from 2. 5, 6, 7. A triplet of 4 Trochees-8 repeated. First published from an MS. in 1893. Songs of Shepherds and rustical Roundelays, Round about, hornéd To take human Bodies As Lords and Ladies to follow the Hare. Now first published from an MS. 13 A METRICAL ACCIDENT Curious instance of casual metre and rhyme in a prose narra. tive (The Life of Jerome of Prague). The metre is Amphibrach dimeter Catalectic-|-, and the rhymes antistrophic. Then Jerome did call a From his flame-pointed Fence; b 'I summon you all, a C ს July 7, 1826. Now first published from an MS. NOTES BY PROFESSOR SAINTSBURY 1. I think most ears would take these as anapaestic throughout. But the introduction of Milton's Drunk with Idolatry, drunk with wine as a leit-motiv is of the first interest. Description of it, 1. 4, very curious. I should have thought no one could have run 'drunk with wine' together as one foot. 2. Admirable! I hardly know better trochaics. 3. Very interesting: but the terminology odd. The dochmius, a five-syllabled foot, is (in one form-there are about thirty!) an antispast -- plus a syllable. Catalectic means (properly)minus a sylla ble. But the verses as quantified are really dochmiac, and the only attempts I have seen. Shall I own I can't get any English Rhythm on them? 4. More ordinary: but a good arrangement and wonderful for the date. 5. Not nonsense at all: but, metrically, really his usual elegiac. 6. This, if early, is almost priceless. It is not only lovely in itself, but an obvious attempt to recover the zig-zag outline and varied cadence of seventeenth century born-the things that Shelley to some extent, Beddoes and Darley more, and Tennyson and Browning most were to master. I subscribe (most humbly) to his suggestions, especially his second. 7. Very like some late seventeenth-century (Dryden time) motives and a leetle 'Moorish'. 8. Like 6, and charming. 9. A sort of recurrence to Pindaric-again pioneer, as the soul of S. T. C. had to be always. 10 and 11. Ditto. 13. Again, I should say, anapaestic-but this anapaest and amphi brach quarrel is ἄσπονδος. |