(KEATS: _Eve of St. Agnes._ 1820.) Professor Corson remarks: "Probably no English poet who has used the Spenserian stanza, first assimilated so fully the spirit of Spenser, ... as did Keats; and to this fact may be partly attributed his effective use of it as an organ for his imagination in its 'lingering, loving, particularizing mood.'" (_Primer of English Verse_, p. 124.) The splendors of the firmament of time May be eclips'd, but are extinguish'd not; Like stars to their appointed height they climb, And death is a low mist which cannot blot The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair, And love and life contend in it for what Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air. (SHELLEY: _Adonais_, st. 44. 1821.) With reference to his use of this stanza Shelley remarked, in the Preface to _The Revolt of Islam_: "I have adopted the stanza of Spenser (a measure inexpressibly beautiful), not because I consider it a finer model of poetical harmony than the blank verse of Shakespeare and Milton, but because in the latter there is no shelter for mediocrity: you must either succeed or fail.... But I was enticed also by the brilliancy and magnificence of sound which a mind that has been nourished upon musical thoughts can produce by a just and harmonious arrangement of the pauses of this measure." Professor Corson (_Primer of English Verse_, p. 112) quotes Mr. Todhunter as saying: "Compare the impetuous rapidity and pale intensity of Shelley's verse with the lulling harmony, the lingering cadence, the voluptuous color of Spenser's, or with the grandiose majesty of Byron's.... In _Adonais_, indeed, a poem on which he bestowed much labor, he handles the stanza in a masterly manner, and endows it with an individual music beautiful and new." "Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land, "This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon." In the afternoon they came unto a land In which it seemed always afternoon. All round the coast the languid air did swoon, Breathing like one that hath a weary dream. Full-faced above the valley stood the moon; And like a downward smoke, the slender stream Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem. (TENNYSON: _The Lotos-Eaters._ 1833.) _abababccc_ A fisher boy, that never knew his peer In dainty songs, the gentle Thomalin, With folded arms, deep sighs, and heavy cheer, Where hundred nymphs, and hundred muses in, Sunk down by Chamus' brinks; with him his dear Dear Thyrsil lay; oft times would he begin To cure his grief, and better way advise; But still his words, when his sad friend he spies, Forsook his silent tongue, to speak in watry eyes. (PHINEAS FLETCHER: _Piscatory Eclogues._ ab. 1630.)