[Chris Childers]

A long time ago here there were some great threads on classical meters in English, masterminded by Jody Bottum. The best one was on sapphics, but we also did nicely by hexameters and alcaics. I'd like to resurrect the theme, but this time with elegiac couplets. I'd love to draw on the collective knowledge here, especially for the history of the form in English, but also for excellent or interesting contemporary examples.

I'll get things started with an obvious one, this bit of drivel by Tennyson. ("Leonine" refers to the rhyming of the word at the caesura with the end-word of each line.):

Leonine Elegiacs
Alfred Lord Tennyson

Lowflowing breezes are roaming the broad valley dimm'd in the gloaming:
Thoro' the black-stemm'd pines only the far river shines.
Creeping thro' blossomy rushes and bowers of rose-blowing bushes,
Down by the poplar tall rivulets babble and fall.
Barketh the shepherd-dog cheerily; the grasshopper carolleth clearly;
Deeply the turtle coos; shrilly the owlet halloos;
Winds creep; dews fell chilly: in her first sleep earth breathes stilly:
Over the pools in the burn watergnats murmur and mourn.
Sadly the far kine loweth: the glimmering water outfloweth:
Twin peaks shadow'd with pine slope to the dark hyaline.
Lowthroned Hesper is stayed between the two peaks; but the Naiad
Throbbing in mild unrest holds him beneath in her breast.

The ancient poetess singeth, that Hesperus all things bringeth,
Smoothing the wearied mind: bring me my love, Rosalind.
Thou comest morning and even; she cometh not morning or even.
False-eyed Hesper, unkind, where is my sweet Rosalind?

Perhaps it is clear but I will say anyway that a recognizable elegiac couplet involves a first line of dactylic hexameter followed by a second line (called an elegiac pentameter) that looks more or less like this: -~~-~~-//-~~-~~- The distinctive thing is the beat, caesura, beat in the middle of the second line, with no unstressed syllables between them. Depending on how classical we are being, it is permitted to do some substitutions (technically spondees, but I would allow iambs or trochees as well) in the first four feet of the hexameter and in the first two feet of the pentameter; Tennyson uses spondaic substitutions throughout, e.g., in the first foot of the last line above. The rhyme is, as I have perhaps indicated, an innovation in this poem (well, it's based on the practice of some medieval monk named Leo), but not a requirement of the form. (I am pretty sure Tennyson has an unrhymed one somewhere too, but I can't find it online. Help?)

Here is another one I found searching for Tennyson's; because it is an excerpt, it starts on the pentameter. I did find the full poem but do not want to type it all out (it's at least two pages long):

from Sea-Side Elegiacs
Earl of Lytton

When, at the mid o' the night, high on the shadowy land,
Mournfully watching the ghost-like waves, livid-lipp'd, hollow-breasted,
Sob over shingle and shell, here with my sorrow I stand.
Weary of woe that is in them, fatigued by the violent weathers,
Feebly they tumble and toss, sadly they murmur and moan.

Here's a translation of Callimachus by Daryl Hine that imitates the measure but ignores the pentameter's mid-line caesura:

Detesting the popular novel, I fail to derive any pleasure
........From such a highway as this which the many frequent.
Heartily loathing a flibbertigibbet love-object, I never
........Drink from the tap. I despise what is common or mean.
Yes, I admit you are handsome, Lysanias, terribly handsome.
........Echo improves on the epithet “—and some one else’s!”

I believe this is the approach taken by Mike Juster as well in his Tibullus. Here, too, is Maryann's Alcuin from our translation fest a while back; she honors the pentameter caesura, and the result is lovely: Alcuin Nightingale by Maryann

If you guys know of poems in elegiacs--have written them yourselves, have read good ones--and could post them here or link to them or otherwise indicate how to find them, that would be lovely. I am particularly interested in older dabblings in the meter. All help is appreciated.

Chris