And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow;
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.

The Romantic poets rebelled against the poetic conventions of Pope's time in much the same manner as living poets have rebelled against the practices of the Victorian poets. The Romanticists either discarded the heroic couplet or handled it in an entirely different manner. The following passage from Keats's "Sleep and Poetry” illustrates both the Romantic use of the couplet and the revolt against Pope's conception of poetry. The move ment of the "open" couplet is not stanzaic but continuous; the pauses occur chiefly inside the line and the rime words are often unstressed.

A schism

Nurtured by foppery and barbarism,

Made great Apollo blush for this his land.

Men were thought wise who could not understand

His glories: with a puling infant's force

They swayed about upon a rocking horse,
And thought it Pegasus. Ah dismal souled!
The winds of heaven blew: the ocean rolled
Its gathering waves-ye felt it not. The blue
Bared its eternal bosom, and the dew
Of summer nights collected still to make
The morning precious: beauty was awake!
Why were ye not awake? But ye were dead
To things ye knew not of,-were closely wed
To musty laws lined out with wretched rule

And compass vile: so that ye taught a school
Of dolts to smooth, inlay, and clip, and fit,
Till, like the certain wands of Jacob's wit,
Their verses tallied. Easy was the task!
A thousand handicraftsmen wore the mask
Of Poesy. Ill-fated, impious race!

That blasphemed the bright Lyrist to his face,
And did not know it.

The heroic couplet is not often found in Victorian poetry. Browning sometimes used it very effectively in the manner of the Romantic poets. So continuous is the movement of the verse in "My Last Duchess" that one may easily mistake it for blank verse. "My Last Duchess" is perhaps the finest example of the dramatic monologue, a type of poem which Browning made famous. Much of Browning's alleged obscurity is due to a failure to understand this type of poetry. The reader has doubtless listened to a friend talking over the telephone, and tried to piece out the whole conversation from the half which he overhears. In the dramatic monologue the situation is precisely the same; we hear only one of the speakers. In "My Last Duchess" the speaker is an Italian nobleman who is showing a picture of his first wife to a messenger from the count whose daughter the speaker proposes to make his second wife. The fifty-six lines of the poem paint memorable pictures of two characters and reveal much of the spirit of Renaissance life in Italy.

MY LAST DUCHESS

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call

That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands

Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
"Frà Pandolf" by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)

And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 't was not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Frà Pandolf chanced to say, "Her mantle laps
Over my lady's wrist too much,” or “Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat": such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had

A heart-how shall I say?-too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed: she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 't was all one! My favor at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule

She rode with round the terrace-all and each

Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men,-good! but thanked
Somehow I know not how—as if she ranked

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill

In speech (which I have not)—to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark"-and if she let

Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set

Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
-E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will 't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,

The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,

Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

Robert Browning (1812-1889)

Poets of today use the heroic couplet oftener than a casual reader would suppose from the manner in which older metrical forms are condemned. We may mention Masefield's "Biography" and "Ships," Rupert Brooke's "The Great Lover," and Robert Frost's "The Tuft of Flowers."

THE TUFT OF FLOWERS

I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.

The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the levelled scene.

I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.

mown,

But he had
gone
his way,
the grass all
And I must be, as he had been,—alone,

"As all must be," I said within my heart, "Whether they work together or apart."

But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly,

Seeking with memories grown dim over night
Some resting flower of yesterday's delight.

And once I marked his flight go round and round, As where some flower lay withering on the ground.

And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.

I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;

But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,

A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.

I left my place to know them by their name,
Finding them butterfly-weed when I came.

The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,

Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him,
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.