Turning to Keats's next favourite among the old poets, William Browne of Tavistock, here is a passage from _Britannia's Pastorals_ which we know to have stuck in his memory, and which illustrates the prevailing tendency of the metre in Browne's hands to run in a succession of closed, but not too tightly closed, couplets, and to abound in double or feminine rime-endings which make a variation in the beat:-- And as a lovely maiden, pure and chaste, With naked iv'ry neck, and gown unlaced, Within her chamber, when the day is fled, Makes poor her garments to enrich her bed: First, put she off her lily-silken gown, That shrieks for sorrow as she lays it down; And with her arms graceth a waistcoat fine, Embracing her as it would ne'er untwine. Her flaxen hair, ensnaring all beholders, She next permits to wave about her shoulders, And though she cast it back, the silken slips Still forward steal and hang upon her lips: Whereat she sweetly angry, with her laces Binds up the wanton locks in curious traces, Whilst (twisting with her joints) each hair long lingers, As loth to be enchain'd but with her fingers. Then on her head a dressing like a crown; Her breasts all bare, her kirtle slipping down, And all things off (which rightly ever be Call'd the foul-fair marks of our misery) Except her last, which enviously doth seize her, Lest any eye partake with it in pleasure, Prepares for sweetest rest, while sylvans greet her, And longingly the down bed swells to meet her. Chapman, a poet naturally rugged of mind and speech and moreover hampered by having to translate, takes much greater liberties, constantly breaking up single lines with a full stop in the middle and riming on syllables too light or too grammatically dependent on the word next following to allow naturally any stress of after-pause, however slight; as thus in the sixth _Odyssey_:-- These, here arriv'd, the mules uncoach'd, and drave Up to the gulfy river's shore, that gave Sweet grass to them. The maids from coach then took Their clothes, and steep'd them in the sable brook; Then put them into springs, and trod them clean With cleanly feet; adventuring wagers then, Who should have soonest and most cleanly done. When having throughly cleans'd, they spread them on The flood's shore, all in order. And then, where The waves the pebbles wash'd, and ground was clear, They bath'd themselves, and all with glittering oil Smooth'd their white skins; refreshing then their toil With pleasant dinner, by the river's side; Yet still watch'd when the sun their clothes had dried. Till which time, having dined, Nausicaa With other virgins did at stool-ball play, Their shoulder-reaching head-tires laying by.