Brimming, and bright, and large: then sands begin
To hem his watery march, and dam his streams,
And split his currents; that for many a league
The shorn and parcell'd Oxus strains along
Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles
Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had
In his high mountain cradle in Pamere,
A foil'd, circuitous wanderer : till at last

The long'd-for dash of waves is heard, and wide
His luminous home of waters opens, bright

And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bath'd stars
Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea.

(MATTHEW ARNOLD: Sohrab and Rustum. 1853.)

Here is the place: but read it low and sweet.
Put out the lamp!

-The glimmering page is clear.
"Now on that day it chanced that Launcelot,
Thinking to find the King, found Guenevere
Alone; and when he saw her whom he loved,
Whom he had met too late, yet loved the more;
Such was the tumult at his heart that he
Could speak not, for her husband was his friend,
His dear familiar friend: and they two held

No secret from each other until now;

But were like brothers born"

Read you a little on.

my voice breaks off.

“And Guenevere,

Turning, beheld him suddenly whom she

Loved in her thought, and even from that hour
When first she saw him; for by day, by night,
Though lying by her husband's side, did she

Weary for Launcelot, and knew full well

How ill that love, and yet that love how deep!"

I cannot see- the page is dim: read you.

"Now they two were alone, yet could not speak ; But heard the beating of each other's hearts.

He knew himself a traitor but to stay,

Yet could not stir: she pale and yet more pale
Grew till she could no more, but smiled on him.
Then when he saw that wished smile, he came
Near to her and still near, and trembled; then
Her lips all trembling kissed."

(STEPHEN PHILLIPS: Paolo and Francesca, III. iii. 1901.)

-

The blank verse of Stephen Phillips is the most important — one may say perhaps the only important— that has been written since Tennyson's; and it is of especial interest as forming an actual revival of the form on the English stage. Aside from the dramas, it is seen at its best in Marpessa. Imitating Milton, and at the same time handling the measure with original force, Mr. Phillips introduces unusual cadences, for which he has been severely reproached by the critics. Such lines as the following are typical of these variations from the normal rhythm:

"O all fresh out of beautiful sunlight."

66

Agamemnon bowed over, and from his wheel."

"And to dispel shadows and shadowy fear.”

"My bloom faded, and waning light of eyes."

For a criticism of Mr. Phillips's verse, see Mr. William Archer's Poets of the Younger Generation, pp. 313-327.

III. SIX-STRESS AND SEVEN-STRESS VERSE

A.

THE ALEXANDRINE (IAMBIC HEXAMETER)

The alexandrine was introduced into English from French verse, as early (according to Schipper) as the early part of the thirteenth century. Early poems in this metre alone, however, are almost wholly wanting, if they ever existed. The early alexandrines usually appear in conjunction with the septenary (seven-stress verse). The French alexandrine has almost always been characterized by a regular and strongly marked medial cesura, and this very commonly appears in the English form, but by no means universally.

The French alexandrine is of uncertain origin. Kawczynski would trace it to the classical Asclepiadean verse, as in

"Mæcenas atavis edite regibus,"

which at least has the requisite number of syllables. It appeared in France as early as the first part of the twelfth century, and in four-line stanzas was the favorite for didactic poetry as late as the beginning of the fifteenth century; otherwise, in the close of the fourteenth century, it was supplanted by the decasyllabic. In the middle of the sixteenth century it again won precedence over the decasyllabic-in part through the influence of Ronsard and is of course the standard measure of modern French poetry. The name "alexandrine" seems to have been applied in the fifteenth century, from the familiar use of the measure in the Alexander romance. The earliest known mention of the term is in Herenc's Doctrinal de la secunde Retorique. (See Stengel's article in Gröber's Grundriss der Romanischen Philologie, from which these statements are taken.)

The French alexandrine is in a sense a quite different measure from the English form. Accent is an element of so comparatively slight importance in the French language and French rhythm, that its place seems partly to be filled by regularity of cesural pause and regularity in the counting of syllables. The French alexandrine, therefore, may often be described as a verse of twelve syllables, divided into two equal parts by a pause, with marked accents on the sixth and twelfth syllables, but with the other accents irregularly disposed. Often it seems to an English reader to have an anapestic effect, and to be best described as anapestic tetrameter. In English, however, while the regularity in the number of syllables is followed, and very commonly the medial pause, there is also observed the regularity of alternate accents which gives the verse the characteristic form indicated by the term "six-stress."

'Ye nuten hwat ye biddep, þat of gode nabbep imone;

for al eure bileve is on stokke oper on stone:

ac peo, pat god iknowep, heo wyten myd iwisse,

þat hele is icume to monne of folke judaysse.'

'Loverd,' heo seyde, 'nu quiddep men, þat cumen is Messyas, pe king, þat wurp and nupen is and ever yete was.

hwenne he cumep, he wyle us alle ryhtleche ;

for he nule ne he ne con nenne mon bipeche.'

(De Muliere Samaritana, II. 51-58. In Morris's Old English Miscellany, p. 84; and Zupitza's Alt- und Mittelenglisches Übungsbuch, p. 83. ab. 1250.)

This early poem illustrates the irregular use of alexandrines near the time of their introduction into English. opens with a septenary

The poem.

"Tho Iesu Crist an eorthe was, mylde weren his dede;”

and septenaries and alexandrines are used interchangeably. Dr. Triggs says, in his notes on the poem in McLean's edition

of Zupitza's Übungsbuch, that lines 5, 6, 9-18, 25-28, 39, 40, 43, 44, 49-54, 57, 58, 63, 64, 66, 67, 70-72, 74, 75 are alexandrines. (Introduction, p. lxii.) The English tendency toward indifference to regularity in the counting of syllables is also noticeable. In the same way the early poem called "The Passion of our Lord" (ed. Morris, E. E. T. S, xlix. 37), which is thought from the heading • Ici cumence la passyun ihesu crist en engleys" — to be a translation from the French, shows a preponderance of alexandrines, although it opens in septenary. See also such poems as the "Death," "Doomsday,” etc., in the Old English Miscellany. The alexandrine was easily confused by the Middle English writers, not only with the septenary, but with the native "long line," and it is often difficult to say just what rhythm was in the writer's mind. Thus a line like

"Be stille, leve soster, thin herte the to-breke,"

from the Judas, may be regarded either as an alexandrine or a long four-stress line.

In Westsex was þan a kyng, his [name] was Sir Ine.
Whan he wist of the Bretons, of werre ne wild he fine.
Messengers he sent thorghout Inglond

Unto pe Inglis kynges, þat had it in per hond,
And teld how pe Bretons, men of mykelle myght,
pe lond wild wynne ageyn þorh force and fyght.
Hastisly ilkone pe kynges com fulle suythe,
Bolde men and stoute, per hardinesse to kipe.
In a grete Daneis felde per pei samned alle,
Pat ever sipen hiderward Kampedene men kalle.

(ROBERT MANNING of Brunne: Chronicle of

Peter de Langtoft. Hearne ed., vol. i. p. 2. ab. 1325.)

This poem is one of the very few representatives of distinctly alexandrine verse in Middle English. The original poem being