--Gray.
The Tennysonian stanza consists of four iambic tetrameter lines in which
the first line rhymes with the fourth, and the second with the third.
Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell;
That mind and soul, according well,
May make one music as before.
--Tennyson.
Five and six line stanzas are found in a great variety. The following are
examples:--
1.
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not;
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
--Shelley.
2.
And if I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree
In the spring.
Let them smile as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough
Where I cling.
--Holmes.
3.
The upper air burst into life;
And a hundred fire flags sheen,
To and fro they were hurried about;
And to and fro, and in and out,
The wan stars danced between.
--Coleridge.
The Spenserian stanza consists of nine lines: the first eight are iambic
pentameters, and the last line is an iambic hexameter or Alexandrine.
Burns makes use of this stanza in _The Cotter's Saturday Night._ The
following stanza from that poem shows the plan of the rhymes:--
O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!
For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent!
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!
And oh! may Heaven their simple lives prevent
From luxury's contagion, weak and vile!
Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,
A virtuous populace may rise the while,
And stand a wall of fire around their much beloved isle.
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