A History of English Rhythms, Volume 1 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
accented syllable adjective alliteration alliterative couplet Anglo-Saxon poems Anglo-Saxon verse Bonduca Bruce Burns Cadmon Cæd century Chau Chaucer common compound section Comus consonant couplet Cynthia's Revels dialects diphthong dissyllable doth doubt dramatists Drayton elided elision English rhythms eyes final rhime five accents Fletcher four accents gret hath House of Fame Jons King Knightes Tale lable language Latin Layamon Lear letters Lord metre middle pause Milton occasionally Olaus Wormius old English orthography Othello Ploughman poetry poets preposition Prol pronounced pronunciation Puttenham quantity rare rhime rhiming syllables rule Sackville sectional pause short vowel Shrew Siege of Leith six accents sometimes Song sound Spenser substantive thee ther thou three accents triple measure tumbling verse Tusser unaccented syllable verb verse of four verse of six Verses beginning verses of five vowel wæs Wallace word writers
Popular passages
Page 78 - Both turned, and under open sky adored The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heaven, Which they beheld, the moon's resplendent globe, And starry pole...
Page 156 - Come away, come away, death, And in sad cypress let me be laid; Fly away, fly away, breath ; I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, O, prepare it; My part of death no one so true Did share it.
Page 198 - Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast ; Still to be powdered, still perfumed: Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face; That makes simplicity a grace ; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free : Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Than all the adulteries of art ; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.
Page 115 - Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul ; And dashing soft from rocks around, Bubbling runnels joined the sound : Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole, Or, o'er some haunted stream, with fond delay, Round a holy calm diffusing, . Love of peace and lonely musing, — In hollow murmurs died away.
Page 124 - As who pursued with yell and blow Still treads the shadow of his foe, And forward bends his head, The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast, And southward aye we fled. And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold; And ice, mast-high, came floating by, As green as emerald...
Page 167 - Where the bee sucks, there suck I; In a cowslip's bell I lie: There I couch when owls do cry. On the bat's back I do fly, After summer, merrily : Merrily, merrily, shall I live now, Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
Page 235 - Olympian hill I soar, Above the flight of Pegasean wing ! The meaning, not the name, I call ; for thou Nor of the Muses nine, nor on the top Of old Olympus dwell'st ; but...
Page 170 - Thou who art bearing my buckler and bow, Should the soldiers of Saul look away from the foe, Stretch me that moment in blood at thy feet ! Mine be the doom which they dared not to meet.
Page 159 - THOUGH need make many poets, and some such As art and nature have not better'd much ; Yet ours for want hath not so loved the stage, As he dare serve the ill customs of the age, Or purchase your delight at such a rate, As, for it, he himself must justly hate...
Page 194 - Look not thou on beauty's charming,— Sit thou still when kings are arming, — Taste not when the wine-cup glistens, — Speak not when the people lis-tens, — Stop thine ear against the singer. — From the red gold keep thy finger, — Vacant heart, and hand, and eye, — Easy live and quiet die.