66 which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo." "I never before," records George Eliot, met with so many of my own feelings expressed just as I should like them." On the response of the common conscience of men Wordsworth's sonnets may rely for their perpetual justification. For his form Wordsworth went back to the true Petrarcan, reintroducing the pause which Milton had slurred, and reassigning to the octave and sestet their proper functions. By the favour of such artists as Mrs. Browning, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, Mr. Swinburne, Mr. William Watson, Mr. WattsDunton, Mr. Gosse, and Mr. Andrew Lang, and by all but unanimous consent of the critics, the Petrarcan form has ever since retained its pride of place. Keats to be sure (whose sonnets some lovers of poetry rank next to Shakespeare's; though on what ground it is hard to see) provides the dissentients with a sorely needed support; almost all his early sonnets being Petrarcan in system and all his later ones Shakespearian. But the deliberate reversion of one poet, even of Keats's quality, cannot seriously shake the great mass of modern authority. It is customary for those who write on this subject to give rules by which a good sonnet may be constructed. But our aim here is not to assist the reader in this or any form of composition. The sonnet has immense popularity just at present, among versifiers. Critics, on the other hand, begin to discover impatience with a form capable of enshrining so much verse of which one can only say, with Charles Lamb, "it discovers much tender feeling; it is most like Petrarch of any foreign Poet, or what we might have supposed Petrarch would have written if Petrarch had been born a fool!" It is hoped that a small volume containing specimens of the best English sonnet-writing of the past will provide the reader with a corrective and a touch-stone of taste. Certainly the study of these specimens ought to assure him that the Sonnet is no arbitrary or haphazard invention; that its length and its peculiar structure were not fixed on by chance; but that every rule has its reason; and that (in a phrase which I may be allowed to repeat) it is the men big enough to break the rules who accept and observe them most cheerfully. A. T. QUILLER-COUCH ENGLISH SONNETS Sir Thomas Wyat THE LOVER FOR SHAMEFASTNESS HIDETH HIS DESIRE THE long Love that in my thought I harbour And in my heart doth keep his residence, Into my face preaseth with bold pretence, And there campeth, displaying his banner. She that me learns to love and to suffer, And wills that my trust and lust's negligence Be ruled by reason, shame and reverence, With his hardiness takes displeasure. Wherewith Love to the heart's forest he fleeth, benry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1518-1546-7) DESCRIPTION OF SPRING: WHEREIN EACH THING RENEWS, SAVE ONLY THE LOVER THE SOote season, that bud and bloom furth brings, With green hath clad the hill and eke the vale, The nightingale with feathers new she sings; The turtle to her mate hath told her tale. Summer is come, for every spray now springs, The hart hath hung his old head on the pale; The buck in brake his winter coat he flings; The fishes flete with new repairèd scale; The adder all her slough away she slings; The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale; The busy bee her honey now she mings; Winter is worn that was the flowers' bale. And thus I see among these pleasant things Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs. A Vow To LOVE FAITHFULLY, HOWSOEVER HE BE REWARDED SET me whereas the sun doth parch the green, Or where his beams do not dissolve the ice; In temperate heat, where he is felt and seen; In presence prest of people mad or wise; Set me in high, or yet in low degree; In longest night, or in the shortest day; In clearest sky, or where clouds thickest be; In lusty youth, or when my hairs are gray : Set me in heaven, in earth, or else in hell, In hill, or dale, or in the foaming flood; Thrall, or at large, alive whereso I dwell, Sick, or in health, in evil fame, or good, Hers will I be; and only with this thought Content myself, although my chance be nought. Earl of Surrey. |