herence to the decasyllabic scheme he has been able to vary his verse considerably, so that Lewis (p. 60) justly calls Milton "the greatest writer of blank verse."
Milton's verse has been treated in detail by Robert Bridges, Milton's Prosody, Oxford 1901, and Walter Thomas, Milton's Heroic Line Viewed from an Historical Standpoint, Modern Language Review 2, 289-315; 3, 16-39, 232-256. The following passages will illustrate Milton's blank verse:
Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater man Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed In the beginning, how the heav'ns and earth Rose out of Chaos. Or if Sion hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flow'd Fast by the oracle of God; I thence Invoke thy aid to my advent'rous song, That with no middle flight intends to soar Above th' Aonian mount, while it pursues Things unattempted yet, in prose or rhyme.
(Paradise Lost I, 1-16.) So pass'd they naked on, nor shunn'd the sight Of God or Angel, for they thought no ill. So hand in hand they pass'd, the loveliest pair That ever since in love's embraces met; Adam the goodliest man of men since born His sons: the fairest of her daughters Eve. Under a tuft of shade that on a green
Stood whisp'ring soft, by a fresh fountain side They sat them down; and after no more toil Of their sweet gard'ning labour than sufficed To recommend cool Zephyr, and made ease More easy, wholesome thirst and appetite More grateful, to their supper-fruits they fell, Nectarine fruits which the compliant boughs Yielded them, side-long as they sat recline On the soft downy bank damask'd with flow'rs.
(Paradise Lost IV, 319-334.)
§ 220. Blank Verse in the XVIII and XIX Centuries. The blank verse of the eighteenth century like Milton's is nearly always decasyllabic, but the sentences are shorter; enjambement becomes rarer, and inverted accent and other irregularities of stress are avoided as far as possible; cp.:
Thro' the hushed air the whitening shower descends, At first thin-wavering; till at last the flakes
Fall broad and wide and fast, dimming the day
With a continual flow. The cherished fields
Put on their winter-robe of purest white.
'Tis brightness all, save where the new snow melts Along the mazy current. Low the woods Bow their hoar heads; and, ere the languid sun Faint from the west emits his evening-ray, Earth's universal face, deep-hid and chill,
Is one wild dazzling waste, that buries wide The works of man.
(Thomson, Winter 229-240.)
Tir'd Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep! He, like the world, his ready visit pays Where fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes; Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe, And lights on lids unsullied with a tear. Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne
In rayless majesty, now stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumb'ring world. Silence, how dead! and darkness, how profound! Nor eye, nor list'ning ear, an object finds; Creation sleeps. 'Tis as the gen'ral pulse Of life stood still, and nature made a pause; An awful pause! prophetic of her end.
(Young, Night Thoughts 1-5. 18—25.)
England, with all thy faults, I love thee still, My country! and, while yet a nook is left
Where English minds and manners may be found, Shall be constrained to love thee. Though thy clime Be fickle, and thy year, most part, deformed With dripping rains, or withered by a frost, I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies And fields without a flower for warmer France With all her vines; nor for Ausonia's groves Of golden fruitage, and her myrtle bowers.
(Cowper, The Task II, 1-10.)
In the nineteenth century the blank verse both of epic and of dramatic poetry again becomes freer. Sometimes it is too free; Mayor (Alden, Engl. Verse p. 249) says of Browning's blank verse:
"The extreme harshness of many of these lines is almost a match for anything in Surrey, only what in Surrey is helplessness seems the perversity of strength in Browning... yet no one can be more impressive than he is when he surrenders himself to the pure spirit of poetry, and flows onward in a stream of glorious music."
English critics praise the blank verse of Tennyson highly; e.g. Alden, p. 246:
"The blank verse of Tennyson is probably to be regarded as the most masterly found among modern poets. Its flexibility is almost infinite, yet never unmelodious."
Compare the following examples:
Oh, there is blessing in this gentle breeze, A visitant that while it fans my cheek Doth seem half-conscious of the joy it brings From the green fields, and from yon azure sky. Whate'er its mission, the soft breeze can come To none more grateful than to me; escaped From the vast city, where I long had pined A discontented sojourner; now free,
Free as a bird to settle where I will.
What dwelling shall receive me? in what vale Shall be my harbour? underneath what grove Shall I take up my home? and what clear stream Shall with its murmur lull me into rest? The earth is all before me. With a heart Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty, I look about; and should the chosen guide Be nothing better than a wandering cloud, I cannot miss my way. I breathe again.
(Wordsworth, The Prelude I, 1 ff.) The stars are forth, the moon above the tops Of the snow-shining mountains. Beautiful! I linger yet with Nature, for the Night Hath been to me a more familiar face Than that of man; and in her starry shade Of dim and solitary loveliness,
I learned the language of another world. 1 do remember me, that in my youth, When I was wandering,
upon such a night I stood within the Coliseum's wall,
'Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome;
The trees which grew along the broken arches Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar The watch-dog bay'd beyond the Tiber; and
More near from out the Cæsars' palace came The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly, Of distant sentinels the fitful song
Began and died upon the gentle wind.
(Byron, Manfred III, 4, 1--19.)
Count Guido Franceschini the Aretine, Descended of an ancient house, though poor, A beak-nosed bushy-bearded black-haired lord, Lean, pallid, low of stature yet robust,
Fifty years old, - having four years ago Married Pompilia Comparini, young,
Good, beautiful, at Rome, where she was born, And brought her to Arrezzo, where they lived Unhappy lives, whatever curse the cause, This husband, taking four accomplices, Followed this wife to Rome, where she was flod From their Arezzo to find peace again,
In convoy, eight months earlier, of a priest, Aretine also, of still nobler birth,
Giuseppe Caponsacchi, caught her there Quiet in a villa on a Christmas night, With only Pietro and Violante by,
Both her putative parents; killed the three, Agèd, they, seventy each, and she, seventeen, And, two weeks since, the mother of his babe First-born and heir to what the style was worth O' the Guido who determined, dared and did This deed just as he purposed point to point.
(Browning, The Ring and the Book I, 780-796.) Now when the dead man come to life beheld His wife his wife no more, and saw the babe Hers, yet not his, upon the father's knee, And all the warmth, the peace, the happiness, And his own children tall and beautiful, And him, that other, reigning in his place,
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