Oh, for a rhyme, a rhyme in o?-- You wriggle, starch-white, my eel? A rhyme! a rhyme! The white feather you SHOW! I parry the point of your steel; --The point you hoped to make me feel; I open the line, now clutch Your spit, Sir Scullion--slow your zeal! At the envoi's end, I touch. (He declaims solemnly): Envoi. Prince, pray Heaven for your soul's weal!英文原著 · 《Cyrano de Bergerac》
It cannot strangle these as thou wert strangled, poor Carlo! I shall remember thee this evening, Carlo, and hope the thought of thee may inspire me for a right beautiful improvisation on death! I shall take pains to bring to mind thy beautiful form overflowed with blood. Yes, it will inspire in me a very effective improvisation, and I will at the same time make a selection from my dear poets of some striking rhymes upon death and the grave. And when I have the rhymes, the thoughts and words will come of themselves. Rhymes, rhymes, these are the main things with poets!"英文原著 · 《The Daughter of an Empress》
Prince of the lute and lyre, reveal
New rhymes, fresh minted, from above,
Nor still be deaf to our appeal. Why, WHY are rhymes so rare to LOVE?英文原著 · 《Ban and Arriere Ban》
What does it all mean, poet? Well, Your brains beat into rhythm, you tell What we felt only; you expressed You hold things beautiful the best, And pace them in rhyme so, side by side. 'Tis something, nay 'tis much: but then, Have you yourself what's best for men? Are you -- poor, sick, old ere your time -- Nearer one whit your own sublime Than we who have never turned a rhyme? Sing, riding's a joy! For me, I ride.英文原著 · 《Introduction to Robert Browning》
Tragedy must be something bigger than life, or it would not affect us. In nature the most violent passions are silent; in tragedy they must speak, and speak with dignity too. Hence the necessity of their being written in verse, and unfortunately for the French, from the weakness of their language, in rhymes. And for the same reason, Cato the Stoic, expiring at Utica, rhymes masculine and feminine at Paris; and fetches his last breath at London, in most harmmonious and correct blank verse.英文原著 · 《Letters to His Son, 1752》
It is quite otherwise with Comedy, which should be mere common life, and not one jot bigger. Every character should speak upon the stage, not only what it would utter in the situation there represented, but in the same manner in which it would express it. For which reason I cannot allow rhymes in comedy, unless they were put into the mouth, and came out of the mouth of a mad poet. But it is impossible to deceive one's self enough (nor is it the least necessary in comedy) to suppose a dull rogue of an usurer cheating, or 'gross Jean' blundering in the finest rhymes in the world.英文原著 · 《Letters to His Son, 1752》