As near to manhood's beauty was the boy's
As, in the hour when drowsy violets wake,
The pure star of the morn

Nears to the sun ere lost in ampler glory.

Much marvelling, spoke the shepherds to the youth,
Who, at their voice, his fluten music ceased,
And answered soft and low;

But theirs not his, and his was not their language.
The Oread's son, a legend of Sicily.

White it rose on lullèd waters,

Rose the blessèd silver isle;

Purple vines in lengthened vistas

Knit the hill-top to the beach;

And the beach had sparry caverns,

And a floor of golden sands;

And wherever soared the cypress,

Underneath it bloomed the rose.

Glimmered there amid the vine-leaves
Thorough cavern, over beach,

Lif-like shadows of a beauty

Which the living know no more;

Towery statues of great heroes,

They who fought at Thebes and Troy

And, with looks that poets dream of,
Beamed the women heroes loved.

Stately out before their comrades,

As the vessel touched the shore,

Came the stateliest two, by Hymen
Ever hallowed into one.

As he strode, the forest trembled

To the awe that crowned his brow;

As she stepped, the ocean dimpled
To the ray that left her smile.

Bridals in the spirit-land.

མ། །

Longfellow composed his 'Hiawatha' in unrhymed trochaic verses of four feet (see page 46).

The following are the closing lines of the poem.

Forth into the village went he,
Bade farewell to all the warriors,
Bade farewell to all the young men,
Spake persuading, spake in this wise:
"I am going, O my people,

On a long and distant journey;
Many moons and many winters

Will have come and will have vanished,
Ere I come again to see you.

But my guests I leave behind me;
Listen to their words of wisdom,
Listen to the truth they tell you,
For the master of life has sent them
From the land of light and morning!"
On the shore stood Hiawatha,
Turned and waved his hand at parting;
On the clear and luminous water
Launched his birch-canoe for sailing,
From the pebbles of the margin

Shoved it forth into the water;

Whispered to it, "Westward! Westward!"
And with speed it darted forward.

And the evening sun descending
Set the clouds on fire with redness,
Burned the broad sky, like a prairie,
Left upon the level water

One long track and trail of splendour,
Down whose stream, as down a river,
Westward, westward Hiawatha

Sailed into the fiery sunset,

Sailed into the purple vapours,
Sailed into the dusk of evening.

And the people from the margin
Watched him floating, rising, sinking,
Till the birch-canoe seemed lifted

High into that sea of splendour,

Till it sank into the vapours

Like the new moon slowly, slowly

Sinking in the purple distance.

"And they said, Farewell for ever!"

Said, "Farewell, O Hiawatha!"

And the forests, dark and lonely,

Moved through all their depths of darkness, Sighed, "Farewell, O Hiawatha!"

And the waves upon the margin
Rising, rippling on the pebbles,
Sobbed, "Farewell, O Hiawatha !
And the heron, the shuh-shuh-gah,
From her haunts among the fenlands,
Screamed, "Farewell, O Hiawatha!"
Thus departed Hiawatha,

Hiawatha the beloved,

In the glory of the sunset,

In the purple mists of evening,
To the regions of the home-wind,
Of the Northwest wind Keewaydin,
To the Islands of the Blessed,
To the Kingdom of Ponemah,
To the land of the Hereafter!

XIII

IMITATIONS OF CLASSICAL METRES

Attempts have been made by several English poets to introduce the metres of the Greek and Latin languages into English verse. Sir Philip Sidney was one of the first to make the experiment; he endeavoured to substitute entirely quantity for accent, and thus accomplish a radical change in English prosody. The scholar and critic Gabriel Harvey was also most ardent in his endeavours to effect the like transformation, and induced his friend Edmund Spenser, then a young man, to make some attempts in the same direction. Their efforts resulted in verses which to an unprejudiced ear seem to have no metre at all, and are certainly destitute of harmony, as the reader may judge from the following specimens borrowed from Sir Philip Sidney.

When cedars to the ground fall down by the weight of an emmet,
Or when a rich rubie's price be the worth of a walnut,
Or to the sun for wonders seem small sparks of a candle:
Then by my high cedar, rich rubie, and only shining sun,
Vertues, riches, beauties of mine shall great be reputed.
Oh, no, no, worthy shepherd, worth can never enter a title,
Where proofs justly do teach, thus matcht, such worth to be nought

worth;

Let not a puppet abuse thy sprite, kings' crowns do not help them

ON THE STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH VERSE

From the cruel headach, nor shoes of gold do the gout heal
And precious couches full oft are shakt with a feaver.

155

His pentameters are no better; here is an example of

hem:

That the delights of life shall be to him dolorous.

William Webbe, the author of A Discourse of English Poetrie,' published in 1586, shortly after the death of Sir Philip Sidney, was more successful. At least he did no violence to the prosody of his own language in his translation of the first eclogue of Virgil in hexameters; he substituted accent for quantity.

The following are specimens of his work.

MELIBOEUS.

Tityrus, happilie thou lyste tumbling under a beech tree,
All in a fine oate pipe these sweete songs lustilie chaunting.
We, poore soules goe to wracke, and from these coastes be
remoovèd,

And fro our pastures sweete: Thou Tityr, at ease in a shade plott,
Mak'st thicke groves to resound with songes of brave Amarillis.

O Melibus, he was no
Ever he shalbe my god

TITYRUS.

man but a god who releevde me : from this same sheepcot his alters Never a tender lambe shall want with blood to bedew them. This good gift did he give, to my steeres thus freelie to wander, And to my selfe (thou seest) on pipe to resound what I listed.

TITYRUS.

Yet thou maist tarrie here, and keepe me companie this night,
All on a leavie couch good aples ripe I do not lacke,
Chestnutts sweete good store, and plentie of curddes will I set thee.
Marke i' the towne how chimnie tops doo beginne to be smoaking,
And fro the mountains high how shaddowes grow to be larger.