FullReads

Here then we have the low beginnings of blank verse. It was nearly a hundred and twenty years before Milton took it up, and, while it served him well, glorified it; nor are we aware of any poem of worth written in that measure between. Here, of course, we speak of the epic form of the verse, which, as being uttered ore rotundo, is necessarily of considerable difference from the form it assumes in the drama.

Let us now glance for a moment at the forms of composition in use for dramatic purposes before blank verse came into favour with play-writers. The nature of the verse employed in the miracle-plays will be sufficiently seen from the short specimens already given. These plays were made up of carefully measured and varied lines, with correct and superabundant rhymes, and no marked lack of melody or rhythm. But as far as we have made acquaintance with the moral and other rhymed plays which followed, there was a great falling off in these respects. They are in great measure composed of long, irregular lines, with a kind of rhythmical progress rather than rhythm in them. They are exceedingly difficult to read musically, at least to one of our day. Here are a few verses of the sort, from the dramatic poem, rather than drama, called somewhat improperly “The Moral Play of God’s Promises,” by John Bale, who died the year before Shakspere was born. It is the first in Dodsley’s collection. The verses have some poetic merit. The rhythm will be allowed to be difficult at least. The verses are arranged in stanzas, of which we give two. In most plays the verses are arranged in rhyming couplets only.

Pater Coelestis.

I have with fearcenesse mankynde oft tymes corrected,
And agayne, I have allured hym by swete promes.
I have sent sore plages, when he hath me neglected,
And then by and by, most comfortable swetnes.
To wynne hym to grace, bothe mercye and ryghteousnes
I have exercysed, yet wyll he not amende.
Shall I now lose hym, or shall I him defende?

In hys most myschefe, most hygh grace will I sende,
To overcome hym by favoure, if it may be.
With hys abusyons no longar wyll I contende,
But now accomplysh my first wyll and decre.
My worde beynge flesh, from hens shall set hym fre,
Hym teachynge a waye of perfyght ryhteousnesse,
That he shall not nede to perysh in hys weaknesse.

To our ears, at least, the older miracle-plays were greatly superior. It is interesting to find, however, in this apparently popular mode of “building the rhyme”–certainly not the lofty rhyme, for no such crumbling foundation could carry any height of superstructure–the elements of the most popular rhythm of the present day; a rhythm admitting of any number of syllables in the line, from four up to twelve, or even more, and demanding only that there shall be not more than four accented syllables in the line. A song written with any spirit in this measure has, other things not being quite equal, yet almost a certainty of becoming more popular than one written in any other measure. Most of Barry Cornwall’s and Mrs. Heman’s songs are written in it. Scott’s “Lay of the Last Minstrel,” Coleridge’s “Christabel,” Byron’s “Siege of Corinth,” Shelley’s “Sensitive Plant,” are examples of the rhythm. Spenser is the first who has made good use of it. One of the months in the “Shepherd’s Calendar” is composed in it. We quote a few lines from this poem, to show at once the kind we mean:–

“No marvel, Thenot, if thou can bear
Cheerfully the winter’s wrathful cheer;
For age and winter accord full nigh;
This chill, that cold; this crooked, that wry;
And as the lowering weather looks down,
So seemest thou like Good Friday to frown:
But my flowering youth is foe to frost;
My ship unwont in storms to be tost.”