Prof. Mezey mentions alcaics, and perhaps we should start another thread on the meter. Besides Auden's, alcaics I like include:
Tennyson’s "Milton: Alcaics"
Edwin Arlington Robinson’s "Late Summer"
Robert Louis Stevenson’s "Alcaics: to H. F. B."
Timothy Steele’s "Luck"
It is a curious meter to use for memorial verse, as Auden did, but there seems something in its English form that calls it to that purpose.
Tennyson's "Milton" is in quantity--a deeply impressive feat. Was there ever a poet with a better ear? (Or a weaker mind to go with it?)
Milton: Alcaics
O mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies,
O skill'd to sing of Time or Eternity,
God-gifted organ-voice of England,
Milton, a name to resound for ages;
Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel,
Starr'd from Jehovah's gorgeous armouries,
Tower, as the deep-domed empyrean
Rings to the roar of an angel onset--
Me rather all that bowery loneliness,
The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring,
And bloom profuse and cedar arches
Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean,
Where some refulgent sunset of India
Streams o'er a rich ambrosial ocean isle,
And crimson-hued the stately palmwoods
Whisper in odorous heights of even.
[This message has been edited by Joseph Bottum (edited July 12, 2004).]
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