So stood she murmuring, till a rippling sound She heard, that grew until she turned her round And saw her other sisters of the deep Her song had called while Hylas yet did sleep, Come swimming in a long line up the stream, And their white dripping arms and shoulders gleam Above the dark grey water as they went, And still before them a great ripple sent. But when they saw her, toward the bank they drew, And landing, felt the grass and flowers blue Against their unused feet; then in a ring Stood gazing with wide eyes, and wondering At all his beauty they desired so much. And then with gentle hands began to touch His hair, his hands, his closed eyes; and at last Their eager naked arms about him cast, And bore him, sleeping still, as by some spell, Unto the depths where they were wont to dwell; Then softly down the reedy bank they slid, And with small noise the gurgling river hid The flushed nymphs and the heedless sleeping man. (WILLIAM MORRIS: _Life and Death of Jason_, iv. 621-641. 1867.) B.--BLANK VERSE Unrimed five-stress verse early became the accepted form for English dramatic poetry, and in the modern English period has become the favorite form for long continuous poems, narrative and reflective as well. In general, as will appear from the specimens, it is marked not only by the absence of rime but by a prevalent freedom of structure rarely found in the couplet. The impetus toward the writing of blank verse seems to have been given by the influence of classical humanism, the representatives of which grew sceptical as to the use of rime, on the ground that it was not found in classical poetry. In Italy Giovanni Trissino wrote his _Sophonisbe_ and _Italia Liberata_ (1515-1548) in rimeless verses, and was looked upon as the inventor of _versi sciolti_, _i.e._ verses "freed" from rime. (See Schipper, vol. ii. p. 4.) See also below, in the notes on Surrey, and later under Imitations of Classical Verse, for notes on the same movement. On the nature of English blank verse, see J. A. Symonds's _Blank Verse_ (1895), a reprint of essays in the Appendix to his _Sketches and Studies in Southern Europe_. In his _Chapters on English Metre_ (chap. iv.), Mr. J. B. Mayor criticises what he calls Mr. Symonds's "æsthetic intuitivism." On the early history of English blank verse, see the article by Schröer, _Anfänge des Blankverses in England, Anglia_, vol. iv. p. 1, and Mr. G. C. Macaulay's _Francis Beaumont_, pp. 39-49.