Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/403

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io* s. v. APRIL 28, 1906. NOTES AND QUERIES.


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evident from what Puttenham says, ' English Poesie/ II. viii. 94 (Arber) : " If one should rime to this word [Restore] he may not match him with [Doore] or [Poore] for neither of both are of like termiuant.' 1 An example of door riming with poor and dure (endure) will be found in ' King Heart,' ninth stanza from the end.

In the course of an extended search within the years 1500-1800 I have failed to find one instance of pour rimed with a word having the vowel-sound of lore, sore, and the like. I have occasionally heard pour pronounced as poor nowadays. T. HUTCHINSON.

As PJSOF. SKEAT asks for other examples of pour pronounced as power, in the normal way, I give one or two quotations from poets of an earlier date than Pope or Gay.

Campion, in a song in his 'Two Books of Airs,' circa 1613, writes :

Sooner may you Count the stars

And number hail down-pouring, Tell the osiers of the Thames,

Or Goodwin sands devouring, Than the thick showered kisses here Which now thy tired lips must bear.

Bishop Henry King, in his * Elegy upon the most victorious King of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus/ has :

When o'er the Germans first his Eagle tower'd, What saw the Legions which on them he pour'd ?

PHOF. SKEAT says that pour rimes with no word ending in -our except four. But does it not rime with the personal pronoun your ? To my ear it seems to do so. It may, how- ever, be noted that some of our earlier poets gave this word also the power rime.

Thomas Lodge, in his poem ' The Lover's Theme,' writes : To write in brief a legend in a line,

My heart hath vowed to draw his life from yours; My looks have made a sun of your sweet eyne,

My soul doth draw his essence from your powers.

Marvell also, in his lines to * The Picture of Little T. C./has:

But 0, Young Beauty of the Woods !

Whom Nature courts with fruits and flowers, Gather the flowers, but spare the buds ! Lest Flora, angry at thy crime To kill her infants in their prime, Should quickly make the example yours.

1 have occasionally heard country people pronounce pour as power, but unfortunately failed '* to make a note of" place and person. W. F. PRIDE AUX.

PKOF. SKEAT asks for examples of pour rimed with the power sound. Here are a few :

Pour with shower. Spenser, 'F. Q., 1 2. 8. 48; Dryden, *^n.,' 4. 233 and 11. 801; 'Thren. Aug.,' 294-7; 'Political Prologue No. II.,'


34 (Globe edition, p. 138) ; Pope, transl. of 'Thebaid/ 1. 494: with flower, Drayton, 1 Polyolbion,' 22. 75 : with hour* Campbell, 4 PI. Hope,' 1. 275 and 2. 61; Wordsworth,

  • Pedestrian Sketches/ 270 (Macmillan's 1888

edition, p. 15, left-hand column) : with Stour (river), ' Polyolbiqn,' 16. 164 (but Stour m is rimed with shore, id , 19. 397, as well as with lower (verb), 18. 745). Pours with flowers, Cowper, * Table Talk,' 210. Poured with deflowered and scoured, 'F.Q.,' 4. 11. 42.

On the other hand, the following examples show 2)our rimed with the pore sound :

Pour with Polydore, Dryden, '^En./3. 93. Poured with restored, id., 5. 131 : with roared, ' Polyolbion,' 18. 418 : with adored, ' Pleasures of Hope,' 2. 83; also Keats's 'Lamia,' 16: with implored, Cowper, trans, of Milton's fourth Latin poem, 1. 31 : with deplored, Byron, * Ch. H.,' iii. stanza 43, and also in "Thy days are done": with accord, Gray, ' Installation Ode,' 52 : with chord and sword, Mrs. Hemans, ' Greek Songs.' Pour with store, Prior, ' Solomon/ 1. 657 and 668 ; Keats> 'Endymion/ 3. 433: with more, id, 2. 982: with shore, id., 'Lines to Fanny,' 35: with door, 'Endymion/ 1. 580: with score, Swin- burne, 'A Sea-Mark.' Tennyson rimes poured with oared ('To E. L.') and with stored ( l Exhibition Ode '), and also pouring with roaring.

Finally, we must not forget

Thy choicest gifts in store

On him be pleased to pour,

Long may he reign !

Pour is rimed by Pope with ore, * Sat. of Donne/ 4. 136, and by Prior, ' Alma/ 1. 513 and 3. 72. Is there any example of it rimed otherwise ?

Two more words ending in -our have to be reckoned with. Paramour is rimed with bower by Chaucer, 'Sir Thopas,' 32; Spenser, 'F. Q.,' 2. 6. 16, 2. 9. 34, 3. 9. 35, 4. 9. 6, and passim; Drayton, * Polyolbion/ 18. 92 : with floioer, Spenser, 'Sh. Gal./ Apr. 139: with hour, power, and your in the ' Nutbrown Maid,' stanza, 26 : with hour, Jonson, ' Chloridia/ penult, line ; and Swinburne, 'Locrine/ 1. 2. 155. Bellamours vt\i\\ floivers, Spenser, Sonnet 64 But with sycamore, Browne, 'Brit. Past.,' 1. 4.669: with shore, Shelley, 'Epipsych.,' 535: with o'er, Byron, 'Ch. H./ 1. 13. In Milton's 'Nat. Hymn' with her, but that is a freak.

Amours is rimed with scores, { Hudibras/ 3. 1. 1023 : with doors, 3. 1. 975 : with yours, Prior. 'Turtle and Sparrow,' 190: with ivorse, ' Hudibras/ 3. 1. 680 : with course, id., 'Heroical Epistle/ 233 and 279. (Course with worse, id., 229.)