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On this page you can find the stanzas of past competition winners, along with other notable entries that, for their commitment or accomplishment, we are reluctant to forget. You can also find below snippets from some well-known Spenserians who, had they ever entered the Spenserian Stanza Competition, might well have won it. |
First Annual Competition: 2004
Judged by Harry Berger, Jr., UC Santa Cruz
- Winner: Clifford Stetner, City University of New York, for
'The Tapster's Tale of Mardux and the Snake'
[Read it.]
- First Honorable Mention: Yulia Ryzhik, Harvard University, for
'Amoret in Her Sickness'
[Read it.]
- Second Honorable Mention: Sarah Rendall, St Olaf College, for
'Jabberwocky Reborn'
[Read it.]
Also of note in 2004:
- Luke Maynard, University of Western Ontario, 'Pair of Dice Lost' [Read it]
- Gina Wise, Rutgers University, 'The Faerie Qveene, Vnleash'd [Read it.]
- Janet Damianopoulos, University of Toronto, 'Fire Song' [Read it.]
- Leigh Harrison, Cornell University, 'The Arthur and Gloriana Tapestry' [Read it.]
- Christopher Bentley, University of Toronto, stanzas on the AIDS garden [Read it.]
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A Selection of Spenserian Stanzas
Henry More, from The Præexistency of the Soul (London, 1647)
Rise then Aristo's son! assist my Muse.
Let that hie spright which did inrich thy brains
With choise conceits, some worthy thoughts infuse
Worthy thy title and the Readers pains.
And thou, O Lycian Sage! whose pen contains
Treasures of heavenly light with gentle fire,
Give leave a while to warm me at thy flames
That I may also kindle sweet desire
In holy minds that unto highest things aspire.
[Read more]
James Thomson, from The Castle of Indolence (London, 1730)
[The wizard Indolence, having addressed the assembled slugabeds, prepares to lure them to their lethargic doom.]
He ceased. But still their trembling ears retain'd
The deep vibrations of his witching song;
That, by a kind of magic power, constrain'd
To enter in, pell-mell, the listening throng.
Heaps pour'd on heaps, and yet they slipt along,
In silent ease; as when beneath the beam
Of summer-moons, the distant woods among,
Or by some flood all silver'd with the gleam,
The soft-embodied fays through airy portal stream:
By the smooth demon so it order'd was,
And here his baneful bounty first began:
Though some there were who would not further pass,
And his alluring baits suspected han.
The wise distrust the too fair-spoken man.
Yet through the gate they cast a wishful eye:
Not to move on, perdie, is all they can:
For do their very best they cannot fly,
But often each way look, and often sorely sigh.
[Read more]
Robert Burns, from 'The Cotter's Saturday Night' (1785)
November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;
The short'ning winter-day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh;
The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose:
The toil-worn Cotter frae his labor goes--
This night his weekly moil is at an end,
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,
And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend.
At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;
Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher through
To meet their dad, wi' flichterin' noise and glee.
His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonilie,
His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile,
The lisping infant, prattling on his knee,
Does a' his weary kiaugh and care beguile,
And makes him quite forget his labor and his toil.
[Read more]
William Wordsworth, from 'Guilt and Sorrow'
Ere long, from heaps of turf, before their sight,
Together smoking in the sun's slant beam,
Rise various wreaths that into one unite
Which high and higher mounts with silver gleam:
Fair spectacle,--but instantly a scream
Thence bursting shrill did all remark prevent;
They paused, and heard a hoarser voice blaspheme,
And female cries. Their course they thither bent,
And met a man who foamed with anger vehement.
A woman stood with quivering lips and pale,
And, pointing to a little child that lay
Stretched on the ground, began a piteous tale;
How in a simple freak of thoughtless play
He had provoked his father, who straightway,
As if each blow were deadlier than the last,
Struck the poor innocent. Pallid with dismay
The Soldier's Widow heard and stood aghast;
And stern looks on the man her grey-haired Comrade cast.
[Read more]
Lord Byron, from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812, 1816)
Oh, lovely Spain! renowned, romantic Land!
Where is that standard which Pelagio bore,
When Cava's traitor-sire first called the band
That dyed thy mountain streams with Gothic gore?
Where are those bloody Banners which of yore
Waved o'er thy sons, victorious to the gale,
And drove at last the spoilers to their shore?
Red gleamed the Cross, and waned the Crescent pale,
While Afric's echoes thrilled with Moorish matrons' wail.
Teems not each ditty with the glorious tale?
Ah! such, alas! the hero's amplest fate!
When granite moulders and when records fail,
A peasant's plaint prolongs his dubious date.
Pride! bend thine eye from Heaven to thine estate,
See how the Mighty shrink into a song!
Can Volume, Pillar, Pile preserve thee great?
Or must thou trust Tradition's simple tongue,
When Flattery sleeps with thee, and History does thee wrong?
[Read more]
Percy Bysse Shelley, from 'Adonais, An Elegy on the Death of John Keats' (1821)
Oh, weep for Adonais!--The quick Dreams,
The passion-wingèd Ministers of thought,
Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams
Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught
The love which was its music, wander not,--
Wander no more, from kindling brain to brain,
But droop there, whence they sprung; and mourn their lot
Round the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain,
They ne'er will gather strength, or find a home again.
[Read more]
John Keats, from 'The Eve of St. Agnes' (1820)
Out went the taper as she hurried in;
Its little smoke, in pallid moonshine, died:
She clos'd the door, she panted, all akin
To spirits of the air, and visions wide:
No uttered syllable, or, woe betide!
But to her heart, her heart was voluble,
Paining with eloquence her balmy side;
As though a tongueless nightingale should swell
Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell.
A casement high and triple-arch'd there was,
All garlanded with carven imag'ries
Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,
And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,
As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings;
And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries,
And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,
A shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings.
Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,
And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast,
As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon;
Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,
And on her silver cross soft amethyst,
And on her hair a glory, like a saint:
She seem'd a splendid angel, newly drest,
Save wings, for heaven:--Porphyro grew faint:
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.
[Read more]
Alfred Lord Tennyson, from 'The Lotos-Eaters'
'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.
A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.
They saw the gleaming river seaward flow
From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops,
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,
Stood sunset-flush'd: and, dew'd with showery drops,
Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.
The charmed sunset linger'd low adown
In the red West: thro' mountain clefts the dale
Was seen far inland, and the yellow down
Border'd with palm, and many a winding vale
And meadow, set with slender galingale;
A land where all things always seem'd the same!
And round about the keel with faces pale,
Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.
[Read more]
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