True, a new mistress now I chase, And with a stronger faith embrace Yet this inconstancy is such As you too shall adore; I could not love thee, Dear, so much, Colonel Richard Lovelace (1618-1658) It is perhaps a platitude that one admires-secretly, at least a quality one lacks. Burns, a creature of impulse, in writing the epitaph of a brother worker, gave highest praise to self-control. The stanza of "A Bard's Epitaph," found also in such well-known poems as "To a Mouse" and "To a Mountain Daisy," has been given Burns's name. Note in this poem the change from dialect to standard English. Owre means over; blate, timid; snool, yield weakly; dool, sorrow. A BARD'S EPITAPH Is there a whim-inspirèd fool, Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule, And owre this grassy heap sing dool, Is there a bard of rustic song, Who, noteless, steals the crowds among, That weekly this area throng? Oh, pass not by! But, with a frater-feeling strong, Here, heave a sigh. Is there a man, whose judgment clear Here pause-and thro' the starting tear, The poor inhabitant below Was quick to learn, and wise to know, But thoughtless follies laid him low, Reader, attend!-whether thy soul Know, prudent, cautious self-control Robert Burns (1759-1796) Poems charged with homely sentiment are, like songs and narrative verse, enjoyed by persons uninitiated into the subtleties of the unsung lyric. Kingsley is, of course, best known not as a poet but as the author of the novels Westward Ho! and Hereward the Wake. Note the feminine rimes in “Young and Old." Were the words lad and there omitted, the sense would be equally clear, but the poem would somehow lose its slow tempo and pathetic dignity. YOUNG AND OLD When all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green; And every lass a queen; Then hey for boot and horse, lad, Young blood must have its course, lad, When all the world is old, lad, And all the trees are brown; God grant you find one face there, Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) In the above poem the second stanza affords a contrast with the first. In the following, the second answers a question which the first has propounded. Goldsmith, a member of Dr. Johnson's Club, was the versatile author of She Stoops to Conquer, The Vicar of Wakefield, The Deserted Village, and The Citizen of the World. A brilliant parody of "When Lovely Woman" may be found in the chapter on Light Verse. WHEN LOVELY WOMAN When lovely woman stoops to folly The only art her guilt to cover, To hide her shame from every eye, Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774) The art, the mythology, and the mystery of the ancient world have always been popular subjects with English poets. The Niobe of Greek mythology, who lost her six sons and six daughters and would not be comforted, has, for instance, become a type of the bereaved mother of all times and lands. For Byron's cultivated audience a hundred words could not have described Rome so well as the phrase "the Niobe of nations." In "Niobe,” as in "Orpheus and Eurydice," and "The Venus of Milo," Noyes has attained a high rank among modern interpreters of the legends of Greek mythology. "Niobe" is, perhaps, the finest presentation in words of the legendary mother. NIOBE How like the sky she bends above her child, Is all its hope, past, present, and to come, She stoops in pity, and yearns to assuage its dearth. Through that fair face the whole dark universe Speaks, as a thorn-tree speaks thro' one white flower; Men heard in Rama when the twisted ways With children's blood ran red! Her silence utters all the sea would sigh; And, in her face, the whole earth's anguish prays. It is the pity, the pity of human love That strains her face, upturned to meet the doom, And her deep bosom, like a snow-white dove Frozen upon its nest, ne'er to resume Its happy breathing o'er the golden brace Whose fostering was her death. Death, death alone Is sealed: the living flesh is turned to stone; Ah, yet, her woman's love, so vast, so tender; Infinite pang of such victorious pain That she transcends the heavens and bows them down! Is hers, and her dominion must remain Eternal. God nor man usurps that crown. Alfred Noyes (1880- ) In this iambic poem, note the substitution of the lighter ascending foot in the last line of the first stanza. The fifth line may be similarly explained, or heaven may be considered as a monosyllable. These substitutions are fairly frequent in iambic poetry. Similarly the dactyl appears occasionally in a trochaic line. Much as the words Promethean and Rama may connote, it is evident |