The metre is iambic pentameter for eight lines, followed by a ninth line, iambic hexameter (or Alexandrine). The order of the rimes is abab bc b c c. This stanza is known as Spenserian stanza.

The Sonnet. The most famous of the longer stanzas is the sonnet. It is a fourteen-line stanza, iambic pentameter. The order of rimes and the movement of the rhythm give two main varieties:

(i) The Italian Sonnet:

ON HIS BLINDNESS.

When I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide,
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest He, returning, chide;
"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?"
I fondly ask; but patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work, or His own gifts; who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best; His state

Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed,

And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait."

-John Milton.

Here the rime order is abba abba cde cde. The rimes of the octave, or first eight lines, are constant, but the rimes of the sextet, or last six lines, may vary except that there must be no rimed couplet at the end.

(ii) The Shakespearian Sonnet:—

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:

Oh, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out' even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me prov'd,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

-Shakespeare.

The rime order is abab cdcd efef gg. The movement is that of three quatrains and a couplet. This is the form used in Shakespeare's Sonnets.

EXERCISE I. Describe the

metre and stanza in

each of the following. Where the stanza has a name

tell the name:—

(1) Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled,
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.

(2) Tiger, tiger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could brave thy fearful symmetry?

(3) I hold it truth with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.

1 Endures.

(4) Such a starved bank of moss
Till, that May-morn,

Blue ran the flash across:

Violets were born.

(5) Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd

In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

(6) With little here to do or see

Of things that in the great world be,
Sweet daisy! oft I talk to thee,
For thou art worthy,

Thou unassuming common-place
Of nature, with that homely face,
And yet with something of a grace,
Which love makes for thee!

(7) The fight did last from break of day
Till setting of the sun;

For when they rang the evening-bell,

The battle was scarce done.

2. Write the following in correct stanza form:-(1) The sun's rim dips; the stars rush out; at one stride comes the dark; with far-heard whisper, o'er the sea, off shot the spectre bark. (2) Owning her weakness, her evil behavior, and leaving with meekness, her sins to her Savior. (3) Fear no more the heat o' the sun nor the furious winter's rages; thou thy worldly task hast done, home art gone and ta'en thy wages: golden lads and girls all must, as chimney-sweepers, come to dust. (4) Music, when soft voices die, vibrates in the memory-odors, when sweet violets sicken, live within the sense they quicken. (5) Fair daffodils, we

weep to see you haste away so soon; as yet the early rising sun has not attained his noon. Stay, stay, until the hasting day has run but to the even-song; and having prayed together, we will go with you along.

3. Compose or find new examples of (1) An heroic couplet. (2) A quatrain, riming a a bb. (3) A quatrain in ballad metre. (4) A Spenserian stanza.

lines of five-accent iambic blank verse.

(5) Five

TABLE OF SOME COMMON CONTRACTIONS.