Chapter III: Preface (2)

In analysing the structure of these forms, it would be, no doubt, possible for a master to present them in English, as terse and epigrammatic as the French of de Banville or de Gramont. But there would be a danger in so doing. A famous prelate is said to have apologised for a long letter, on the ground that he had not time to write a short one: this anecdote may be paraphrased here, for it often happens that many have time to run through a discursive, gossipy description, when they could not devote the attention needful to _read_ a short one. If every word is carefully chosen, and used in an exact way to convey as much as possible, it requires no less careful reading;--as in some of our Science Primers, where the material for an ordinary chapter is condensed and reduced to the crystal of a single sentence, that demands almost equal exactness in obtaining its solution, if one would absorb all the learning compressed in so small a compass. This excuse may serve in lieu of a better for the somewhat prolix method in which these rules are presented. Let no one imagine that the most perfect knowledge of the laws of these forms is enough to start him in writing poetry; for such rules are but what the fundamental rules of arithmetic are to astronomers--all important as the basis, but powerless, without genius and science, to discover new worlds, or formulate an hypothesis for the existence of known ones. If such books as those the present chapter follows are looked upon as handbooks to making _poetry_, that one stupendous flight of imagination is probably the only one its author is fated to achieve.

THE BALLADE.--In the alphabetical sequence adopted in the arrangement of this volume, the _Ballade_ happily comes first. This is as it should be, since no other of these forms has been more frequently used in English, nor, it may be, is any other so capable of variety, since among its successful examples many different treatments will be found. This form adapts itself to its subject, and may be sonorous or stately, playful or easy, at the will of its writer, as, in capable hands, it can strike any note in the gamut of passions, from religious exaltation or fierce grim satire, to actual pathos, or, if needful, pure burlesque. It is possible the _Ballade_ will never be written so strictly to one model as the sonnet, but that many variations--to be noticed presently--will each find admirers; but the existing examples warrant a belief that the shape will continue in our poetry, for it is impossible, in face of many hundred examples, to style it an exotic at the present day.

The construction of the _Ballade_, although not less stern in insisting on the introduction of a refrain than many of the other shapes, uses it at wider intervals, and so escapes the besetting danger of such forms as the _villanelle_ or _triolet_, where its constant recurrence may easily become as senseless as the "with a fal, la, la" of the old madrigal writers, unless it be very skilfully brought in. Again, its length, generally of twenty-eight or thirty-five lines, with the refrain in either case appearing but four times, allows room to display the subject, and yet forbids the diffuseness of many ordinary lyrics, where one fancies a happy rhyme-sound is often responsible for the intrusion of an additional couplet or quatrain, that weakens the whole poem. Its length, moreover, strictly within hard and fast limits though it be, is not so cramped as the fourteen lines of the true sonnet, nor has tradition fixed the style of treatment of the central idea. The narrative ballade is perfectly legitimate, provided the writer has sufficient power to overcome the extreme difficulty it presents. It is often urged that the unalterable sequence of rhymes, which must be found after the set of three or five are once chosen, proves a hindrance to the imagination of the poet who uses it. M. Lemâitre has answered this objection very aptly. He says--"The poet who begins a ballade does not know very exactly what he will put into it. The rhyme, and nothing but the rhyme, will whisper things unexpected and charming, things he would never have thought of but for her, things with strange and remote relations to each other, all united in the disorder of a dream. Nothing, indeed, is richer in suggestion than the strict laws of these difficult pieces; they force the fancy to wander afield, hunting high and low; and while she seeks through all the world the foot that can wear Cinderella's slipper, she makes delightful discoveries by the way."[6]

[6] Mr. Andrew Lang, _Longman's Magazine_, April 1887.

The BALLADE, in its normal type, consists of three stanzas of eight lines, followed by a verse of four lines, known as the envoy, or three verses of ten lines, with envoy of five, each of the stanzas and the envoy closing with the refrain. The most important rules for the ballade may be put briefly:--_First_, The same set of rhymes in the same order they occupy in the first stanza must repeat throughout the whole of its verses. _Secondly_, No word once used as a rhyme must be used again for that purpose in the whole length of the poem. _Thirdly_, Each stanza and the envoy must close with the refrain; the envoy always taking the same rhymes as the last half of the preceding verse, in the same order. For the eight-lined ballade, but three rhymes are allowable. In ordinary rhyme formula the sequence of these is A, B, A, B, B, C, B, C, for each of the three verses, and B, C, B, C, for the envoy. The importance of the refrain must now be noticed. Old writers and purists of our own time insist that the length of the refrain should govern not only the length of each line, but the number of the lines; in other words, that a refrain of eight syllables involves the choice of an eight-lined stanza, while the refrain of ten syllables demands a ten-lined verse. This is the strict rule of the ballade as written by Clement Marot, and by some modern writers; but it must be clearly understood that it is only the rule for the ideally pure form, and that variations in this respect are perfectly allowable. Now the importance of the refrain in one aspect is given, a still more vital point must be named--namely, that the sense of the refrain must be supreme throughout the ballade, the culminating line of each stanza always brought in without effort as the natural close of the verse. In the verses a special feature must not be overlooked, namely, that the stanza (of eight or ten lines, as the case may be) should carry an unbroken sense throughout, and not split into two verses of four lines or five lines, that are by chance printed as though they were one. The needful pauses for punctuation are of course allowed, but the sense should not finish at the end of the first quatrain (or quintain), but demand the rest of the verse to complete the idea presented. All these apparently trivial details must be regarded if the ballade is attempted. The advice given in _Alice in Wonderland_, "Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves," whether in that way or its inversion, "Take care of the sounds and the sense will take care of itself," is exactly the direct opposite of the true rule. Neither sense nor sound may be scamped here. If you neglect the sounds it is no ballade; if you neglect the sense--why write it at all? No one is compelled to use these complex forms, but if chosen, their laws must be obeyed to the letter if success is to be attained. The chief pleasure they yield consists in the apparent spontaneity, which is the result of genius, if genius be indeed the art of taking infinite pains; or, if that definition is rejected, they must yet exhibit the art which conceals art, whether by intense care in every minute detail, or a happy faculty for naturally wearing these fetters. The dance in chains must be skilful, the chains worn as decorative adjuncts, and the whole with as much apparent ease as the unfettered dancer could produce, or woe betide the unlucky wight who attempts to perform in them.

The ENVOY is so peculiarly a feature of the Ballade and Chant Royal, that it is needful to draw our attention to the invocation which with it invariably commences. Of old this envoy was really addressed to the patron of the poet, or at least to the high dignitary to whom he dedicated his ballade. So that we find Prince! or Princess! Sire! or some mythical or symbolical personality invoked in the opening word. Often the person chosen was in very truth a noble of the rank assigned, but the custom of opening the envoy in this fashion grew so common that it lost its special fitness, and was often employed as a conventional ascription to those not of noble rank, while in some instances all the lovers' ballades intended for their own ladies were yet ascribed by the poets to the "Princess" of the court, who quite understood the fiction employed, and accepted praise of the golden hair and blue eyes of the rightful owner of the poem, while possibly her royal tresses were black and her eyes brown. In the number of ballades included in this collection the larger number will still be found to follow the old custom, which is so marked that the use of this dedication certainly carries out the spirit of the poem, in accordance with its original design. The envoy is not only a dedication, but should be the peroration of the subject, and richer in its wording and more stately in its imagery than the preceding verses, to convey the climax of the whole matter, and avoid the suspicion that it is a mere postscript, as it were, to the ballade.

In the ballade with stanzas of ten lines, usually of ten syllables each, four rhymes are permitted in this order--A, B, A, B, B, C, C, D, C, D, with C, C, D, C, D for the envoy. It is not needful to quote examples, or describe varieties with eight or ten-lined stanzas, that have lines of equal or unequal length, but in other respects follow all the true rules. De Gramont has observed that the strict laws of the _ballade_ belong more to the prosodists who studied the form after it had ceased to be in current use, and that the writers of the _ballade_ themselves frequently took great liberty. In some by Marot there are verses of eleven or twelve decasyllabic lines, and in poets who preceded him, some with thirteen and fourteen lines to the stanza, while the number of verses has also been flagrantly disregarded, some even using four or five verses, and still worse, having different rhymes to them; but in such cases the poem must not be regarded as an irregular ballade, nor a ballade at all, but simply as a set of verses with refrain.

The _Ballade with double refrain_, of which the "Frere Lubin" of Clement Marot is the only well-known example in old French, is said by Thomas Sibilet, in his _Art Poétique_, 1555, to be "_autant rare que plaisante_." Its point of difference is that a second refrain is introduced at the fourth line of each stanza, and the second of the envoy. This necessarily alters the order of the rhymes of the envoy. In the best known English example the rhyme order is A, B, A, B, B, C, B, C, with B, B, C, C, for the envoy. There are several in modern English, and some in recent French.

The _Double Ballade_ consists of six stanzas of eight or ten lines, and is written usually without an envoy. The "Ballade of Dead Lions," in _London_, January 12, 1878, was the first English specimen; it is not quoted here, as its subject is now out of date. De Banville has written several. "_Pour les bonnes gens_," "_Des sottises de Paris_" are two in his "_Trente-six Ballades Joyeuses_" written in this form.

M. de Banville humorously reveals a secret of the poet's workshop, and gives a method to construct a "correct" ballade in a mechanical fashion, dispensing with genius, and easy to work--First, at one sitting write the last half of all the verses, and at another time the first half, then join them together, and the result will be an irremediably bad ballade; but elsewhere he writes, in all seriousness this time, "All the art is to bring in the refrain without effort, naturally, gaily, and at each time with novel effect and with fresh light cast on the central idea. 'Now you can' teach 'no one to do that, and M. de Banville never pretends to give any receipts for cooking _rondels_ or _ballades_ worth reading.' Without poetic vision all is mere marqueterie and cabinetmaker's work; that is, so far as poetry is concerned, nothing."[7]

[7] A. Lang on De Banville, _New Quarterly Magazine_, Oct. 1878.

The CHANT ROYAL is now accepted by most writers as merely a larger form of the ballade, written with five verses of eleven lines, and envoi of five. De Gramont treats the idea to regard it as a distinct form as a mere fanciful attempt of prosodists, founded chiefly on the fact that Clement Marot has left four so named which conform to the above rule; but he shows that on the one hand there are ballades with stanzas of eleven lines, and on the other chants royal with ten only. It has been suggested that the _Chant Royal_ derived its name from the subjects that are more usually dedicated to its use; but while these are generally sublime topics treated in dignified allegory, yet there are examples extant entirely devoid of these characteristics. Again, the idea that it owes its name to being a form selected for competition before the king for the dignity of laureate, and hence dubbed royal-song, he also rejects, and points out that its name simply denotes that it is the most excellent form of the ballade (as we might say, the "king of ballades" in English), one that, from the increased length, both in stanzas and number of lines in each, largely augments the difficulties of construction met with in the true ballade, and marks it as "the final _tour de force_ of poetic composition." Henry de Croï derives the title of this form from the fact that persons excelling in the composition of chants royal were worthy to be crowned with garlands like conquerors and kings. It is a moot point with students whether the ballade or chant royal is the earlier and original poem. The chant royal in the old form is usually devoted to the unfolding of an allegory in its five stanzas, the envoy supplying the key; but this is not always observed in modern examples. Whatever be the subject, however, it must always march in stately rhythm with splendid imagery, using all the poetic adornments of sonorous, highly-wrought lines and rich embroidery of words to clothe a theme in itself a lofty one. Unless the whole poem is constructed with intense care, and has intrinsic beauty of its own of no mean order, the monotony of its sixty-one lines rhymed on five sounds is unbearable. In spite of the increased burden imposed by the necessity of so many similar rhymes, no shadow of "poetic" or other license must be taken. Nothing short of complete success can warrant the choice of this exacting form, which demands all that can be given to it; enriched with all the elaboration of consummate art in its every detail, and rising stanza by stanza, until the climax is reached in the envoy.

The laws of the ballade apply to the chant royal, with some added details of its own. The rhyme order is usually--a, b, a, b, c, c, d, d, e, d, e, with envoy of d, d, e, d, e. An example by Deschamps, "_Sur le mort du Seigneur de Coucy_," observes this order, a, b, a, b, b, c, c, d, c, d, and envoy, c, c, d, c, c, d. In either case the rhyme-order must be kept the same for each stanza, and the envoy commenced with an invocation as in the old ballades.

CHAIN VERSE.--There is one beautiful poem in so-called chain verse, which has so much likeness to these once-exotic forms that it deserves quotation in full, if only as an example of a native specimen of poetic ingenuity. It has little affinity with the chain verse of French art, as then the one word only grew from each line into the other (La rime Enchaînée).

Dieu des Amans, de mort me garde
Me gardant donne-moi bonheur,
Et me le donnant prend ta darde
Et la prenant navre son coeur
Et le navrant me tiendras seur.

* * * * *

--_Clement Marot._

The following hymn was written by John Byrom, and published in vol. ii. of his _Posthumous Poems_, 1773:--

THE DESPONDING SOUL'S WISH.

My spirit longeth for Thee,
Within my troubled breast,
Although I be unworthy
Of so Divine a Guest.

Of so Divine a Guest
Unworthy though I be,
Yet has my heart no rest,
Unless it comes from Thee.

Unless it comes from Thee,
In vain I look around;
In all that I can see
No rest is to be found.

No rest is to be found
But in thy blessèd love:
Oh, let my wish be crowned,
And send it from above.

_The Answer._

Cheer up, desponding soul,
Thy longing pleased I see:
'Tis part of that great whole
Wherewith I longed for Thee.

Wherewith I longed for Thee
And left my Father's throne,
From death to set thee free,
To claim thee for my own.

To claim thee for my own
I suffered on the cross:
O! were my love but known,
No soul need fear its loss.

No soul need fear its loss,
But, filled with love divine,
Would die on its own cross
And rise for ever thine.

This has so many points resembling the forms in this book, that it seemed worth quoting, if only to compare with the Malay Pantoum, the Villanelle, and the Rondel.

KYRIELLE.--The _Kyrielle_ is so simple, and so widely used by writers, all unwittingly, that but for M. de Banville including it, it would be left unnoticed here. It is merely a poem in four-lined verses of eight-syllable lines, having the last line of each the same. Our hymn books show many, witness "Jesus! Son of Mary, hear," or "Jesus, our Love, is crucified." It is a device so evident that it has naturally been used in almost all schools of poetry, and may be dismissed with no more words here.

PANTOUM.--The _Pantoum_, at first sight, has little reason for being included in a volume of verse in strict traditional forms, that are nearly all of French origin, since it is of Malay invention; but being introduced by M. Ernest Fouinet, and reproduced by M. Victor Hugo in the _Orientales_, it has found a place in the group of these forms given by De Banville, De Gramont, and others. The Pantoum is written in four-line stanzas. The second and fourth line of each verse form the first and third of each succeeding one, through an indefinite number of quatrains. At the close, to complete the unity of the work, the second and fourth line of the last stanza are made from the first and third of the first verse. The rhymes are a b, a b,--b c, b c,--c d, c d,--d e, d e, and so on, until the last (which we may call z) z a, z a. In Mr. Austin Dobson's "In Town" and Mr. Brander Matthews' "En route"--as the latter himself points out in _The Rhymester_--"there is an attempt to make the constant repetitions not merely tolerable but subservient to the general effect of monotonously recurrent sound--in the one case the buzzing of the fly, and in the other the rattle and strain of the cars."

THE RONDEL, RONDEAU, and ROUNDEL, a group having a common origin, are now to some extent classified, by each accepted variety using one form of the common name to denote its shape, but this division is purely arbitrary and a modern custom, only followed here, both in these notes and in the arrangement of the volume itself, to facilitate reference.

The RONDEL is merely the old form of the word rondeau; like _oisel_ for _oiseau_, _chastel_ for _chateau_ so _rondel_ has become _rondeau_. It is one of the earliest of these forms, and freely used in the fourteenth century by Froissart, Eustache Deschamps, and others. It probably arose in Provence, and passed afterwards into use in Northern France. The name (rondel) is still applied to forms written after its early shape, the later spelling of the name being kept for the more recent variations of its form. In its origin, the rondel was a lyric of two verses, each having four or five lines, rhyming on two rhymes only. In its eight (or ten) lines, but five (or six) were distinct, the others being made by repeating the first couplet at the end of the second stanza, sometimes in an inverse order, and the first line at the end of its first stanza. The eight-lined rondel is thus, to all intents and purposes, a triolet, although labelled a rondel. Here is a fourteenth century one by Eustache Deschamps:--

Est ce donc vostre intencion
De voloir retrancher mes gaiges
Vingt livres de ma pension?
Est-ce donc vostre intencion?
Laissez passer l'Ascension,
Que honni soit vostre visaige!
Est-ce donc vostre intencion
De voloir retrancher mes gaiges?

Nor are these rondel-triolets exceptions; they are quite common till the beginning of the fifteenth century. With Charles d'Orléans the rondel took the distinct shape we now assign to it, namely, of fourteen lines on two rhymes, the first two lines repeating for the seventh and eighth, and the final couplet (see page 135). In this, the true type of the rondel, the two-lined refrain occurring three times in its fourteen makes it an unwieldy form to handle. In later French ones the last refrain uses but one of its lines. In Mr. Austin Dobson's "The Wanderer," the rhymes are in this order:--A. B. b. a.--a. b. A. B.--a. b. b. a. A. (the refrain being marked by capital letters). In another by the same author, "How hard it is to Sing," the rhyme order is A. B. a. b.--b. a. A. B.--a. b. a. b. A. B.; the rondel of Charles d'Orléans having A. B. b. a. a. b. A. B.--a. b. b. a. A. B. The length of the lines is not confined to any particular number of syllables in modern examples.

By the time of Octavien de Saint Gelais (1466-1502) the rondel has nearly become the rondeau as we know it. Still rhymed on but two sounds, it repeats the first line only, nor always the whole of that, as the quoted examples show:--

De ce qui est au pouvoir de Fortune
Nul ne se doit vanter ny tenir fort:
Car ung jour sert de plaisir et confort,
Et l'autre après, de courroux et rancune.

Aux ungs est bonne, aux autres importune,
Estrange à tous, car nuls n'entent le sort
De ce qui est au pouvoir de Fortune.

Les ungs ont d'elle honneur, scavoir, pecune;
L'autres n'ònt que pitié et remort,
Et povreté, qu'est pire que la mort.
Est-il aucun qui soit seur soubz la lune
De ce qui est au pouvoir de Fortune?

Here it is formally divided into three parts with the rhymes--a, b, b, a; a, b, a; a, b, b, a, a. The refrain, too, is no longer a mere reiteration of the text, but linked with the preceding verse, as a refrain should be, and absorbed into the sense of the whole stanza to which it belongs. This change is still more noticeable in the rondel, using but half the first line for its refrain, as in this example:--

Je vous arreste de main mise.
Mes yeulx; emprisonnez serez.
Plus mon coeur ne gouvernerez
Desormais, je vous en advise.

Trop avez fait à vostre guise;
Par ma foy plus ne le ferez,
Je vous arreste.

On peut bien pour vous corner prise:
Pris estes, point n' eschapperez.
Nul remede n'y treuverez;
Rien n'y vault appel ne franchise:
Je vous arreste.

Here we pass into the later form called (for convenience only) the _Rondeau_. In these few examples the evolution of the _Voiture_ type, from the Charles d'Orléans original, is clearly traceable. The rondel, however, still continues to be used, but much less frequently. De Banville often omits the thirteenth line, while otherwise following the model of Charles d'Orléans. Again, the order of the rhymes is sometimes changed, but the examples quoted in this collection will show more clearly the deviations from the true rondel than any description would do.

The RONDEAU after Voiture's model is without doubt the most popular variety of the form now in use. It is written throughout on two rhymes, being composed of thirteen lines and two unrhymed refrains. The lines are now nearly always of eight syllables only, in many of the old ones they were of ten. The refrain is usually made from the first half of the first line, but it is not uncommon to find the first word only taken for this use. Its thirteen lines are grouped in three stanzas, the first and third having five lines each, the second consisting of three only. The refrain occurs at the end of the second stanza, and at the close of the poem. The usual rhyme order is a, a, b, b, a,----a, a, b (and refrain)--a, a, b, b, a, and refrain. The refrain is not counted among the lines of the verse, but is added to the thirteen, and in the neatness of its introduction, and in the way each of the two verses to which it belongs flow into it, so that it forms an integral and inseparable part of the stanza, the chief difficulty of the rondeau lies. If, like an "Amen" to a hymn, the refrain comes merely as an extraneous comment on the preceding lines, it is no true rondeau. At the risk of reiteration of a warning given in the description of each of these poems that use a refrain, this point must be insisted on, as the most vital one. The mechanical laws of the poem may be obeyed with scrupulous exactitude, and every technical rule complied with, while the still more important quality of sense is overlooked. The thought of the poet must so find its expression that the refrain completes it, and forms the true climax of his speech--the culminating phrase of his sentence. The refrain is the very text of the whole discourse, in itself an epitome of the subject of the whole poem, otherwise the reason for its existence in one of these fixed shapes is wanting, and the poem would be better in free verse. In the refrain the sound must reappear exactly, but the sense may be altered; in fact, this playful variation of its meaning is one of the charms of the verse when used for lighter and more dainty subjects. The good taste of the author must decide how far an actual pun is allowable. There are precedents for the use of the pun pure and simple--"votre beau thé" "vòtre beauté," or, "à la fontaine," used in its literal sense, and also with reference to the famous fabulist. But in English use the pun has fallen into disrepute, perhaps from the execrable word-contortions of our so-called comic papers and its terrible vulgarity in stage burlesques, the intrusion of one is fatal to the delicacy and refinement which are the peculiar charm of the rondeau. But if a play upon words of a scholarly kind, or a new reading given either by punctuation, or the use of the words with a new light thrown on them by the lines leading up to the refrain, can be secured, every effort should be made to vary the refrain by so doing.

This quality of dainty and spontaneous wit is the secret of the rondeau, only revealed, if it is to be found at all, by close analysis of the best examples. De Banville quotes three of Voiture's--"Je ne sçaurois," "L'Amour," and "Penser"--especially for this all-important feature; but in this volume may be found examples equally worthy of study. It would be invidious to draw attention to the best of those that have been allowed to appear here, but if the wit of the would-be rondeau-maker fails to discover the successful use of the refrain, and to pick out the best examples, it is in itself evidence that he had better abstain from trying to produce rondeaus that would certainly lack the airy grace and caressing tenderness which should be an element of this verse. A famous example of Voiture's is quoted on page 134.

The following is its English paraphrase by Mr. Austin Dobson, withdrawn from his later editions, but quoted now by his consent:--

You bid me try, BLUE-EYES, to write
A Rondeau. What! forthwith?--To-night?
Reflect. Some skill I have, 'tis true;
But thirteen lines!--and rhymed on two!--
"Refrain," as well. Ah, hapless plight!
Still there are five lines--ranged aright.
These Gallic bonds, I feared, would fright
My easy Muse. They did, till you--
_You_ bid me try!

"That makes them eight.--The port's in sight:
Tis all because your eyes are bright!
Now just a pair to end in "oo,"--
When maids command, what can't we do!
Behold! The RONDEAU--tasteful, light--
You bid me try!"

A study of rondeaus will show, both in ancient and modern examples, some little alteration of the rhyme-order, and a few trivial differences in other respects. But as the sonnet has evolved through many stages into one accepted shape that is now permanently fixed as its true type, so the rondeau of Voiture may be taken as the typical form to be imitated--the one that has, by process of selection, been proved to be the best to display the subject of the poem, and to work-in the refrains to the best advantage. Like the sonnet, the perfected form is jealously guarded. The genius which consists in breaking rules is looked upon with suspicion in all these forms, but especially in this one. There are some beautiful variations in old and new examples where the shape is widely varied, but these stand apart from the pure rondeaus of Voiture, and are generally still more difficult to construct by reason of the additional laws the writers have imposed on themselves. But the trifling evasion of the rhyme-order, a want of exactitude on the repetition of the refrain, is apt to be taken as evidence of lack of power to conform gracefully to the bonds, and not as an outburst of genius that is too strong to be confined in such puny fetters. But there are a few _poems_ in these forms written fairly near the true shape, which, like some irregular, but yet in themselves beautiful sonnets, are not to be condemned solely for being impure in form. For the sake of poetry one is ready to forgive much, but it must be only real _poetry_ that takes such liberty; and all the time comes a wish that having gone so near perfection of shape as well as of sense, the poet had taken the last steps needful to make his poem perfect in each respect.

There is another form than Voiture's, which is equally a true rondeau--that used by Villon. This is quoted, with Mr. Payne's translation, to show clearly the ten-lined rondeau:--

LAY OU PLUTOST RONDEAU.

Mort, j'appelle de ta rigueur,
Qui m'as ma maistresse ravie,
Et n'es pas encore assouvie,
Se tu ne me tiens en langueur.
Onc puis n'euz force ne vigueur
Mais que te nuysoit-elle en vie,
Mort?

Deux estions, et n'avions qu'ung cueur;
S'il est mort, force est que devie,
Voire, ou que je vive sans vie,
Comme les images, par cueur.
Mort!

--_François Villon._

LAY, OR RATHER RONDEAU.

Death, of thy rigour I complain,
That hast my lady torn from me,
And yet wilt not contented be,
Till from me too all strength be ta'en
For languishment of heart and brain.
What harm did she in life to thee,
Death?

One heart we had betwixt us twain;
Which being dead, I too must dree
Death, or, like carven saints we see
In choir, sans life to live be fain,
Death!

--_John Payne._

Mr. Austin Dobson's _Rose_, which appeared in _The Spectator_, was one of the earliest, if not the very first, of the few examples of this variety in English use.

The ROUNDEL, which, it must again be said, is simply a variation of the rondeau, and not a distinct form, is grouped apart in this collection for the sake of convenience. Since Mr. Swinburne devoted a volume, entitled _A Century of Roundels_, to this particular form of the rondeau, it has been used by other writers, and the name applied by him has been kept by those who chose to follow the same form. Probably Mr. Swinburne, during his readings in early French poetry, found poems of this shape extant, or it may be that, for reasons of his own, he formulated this variety, which slightly differs from any I have been able to find. In Marot's _De l'Amoureux Ardant_ there is a likeness to this shape, and in Villon's _Mort_ there is also a resemblance, but Mr. Swinburne's roundel has eleven lines always, while Villon's has twelve, rhyming a.b.b. a.a.b. refrain, a.b.b.a. refrain. Again, Mr. Swinburne's roundel not only has a new rhyme order, A.B.A. refrain; B.A.B.; A.B.A. refrain; but when the refrain consists of more than a single word it rhymes with the B lines. The rhythm, too, of Mr. Swinburne's are in every possible and--in any hands but his--impossible variety. The lines vary from four to sixteen syllables, but are generally identical in length in the same roundel. As an experiment in rhythm the _Century of Roundels_ will, no doubt, always command attention, and there are not wanting signs that his _Roundel_, keeping its length and other details, may become a recognised shape in English verse; but it must be distinctly understood that Mr. Swinburne is responsible for its introduction, and to him, not to the early French poets, must be awarded the honour of its invention, unless he himself refers it to an earlier source for its authority; but it may be that with admiration for the old shapes, he yet saw that for English use a variation was preferable, and so rearranged the lines and the refrain of the olden form in the way he considered best suited to our tongue.

The _Rondelet_ is a little form not noticed in De Gramont or De Banville. Boulmier has printed several in his "Poésies en language du XVe. Siècle" at the end of his volume, entitled _Les Villanelles_. Here is one.

François Villon,
Sur tous rithmeurs, à qui qu'en poise,
François Villon
Du mieulx disant eut le guerdon
Né de Paris empres Pontoise
Il ne féit oncq vers à la toise
François Villon.

Here we find he adopts a seven-line stanza with four eight-syllable lines, and three of four syllables on two rhymes, a, b, a, a, b, b, a. While strongly resembling the triolet and the early rondel, it yet seems worth noting as a pretty variety for trifling subjects. There are several in English verse.

The RONDEAU REDOUBLÉ would fail to suggest kinship with either form of the Rondeau, did not it include the name in its designation, as De Banville notes. It is probable that many more poems were grouped under the word Rondeau than we now are able to trace. The one we are now describing is in no way a doubled rondeau, and hardly suggests that form more than any of these that have the features of limited rhyme sounds, and more or less frequent reiteration of a refrain. The Rondeau Redoublé is written in six octosyllabic quatrains, rhyming on two alternate rhymes, with half the initial line used (unrhymed) after the last verse. Its one distinctive feature is this:--Each line of the first quatrain is used again in the same order to serve for the last line of verses two, three, four, and five; while the last line of the sixth has a new wording for itself, but takes, in addition, a final refrain of the first half of the initial line of the poem to conclude the whole. As the rhymes of the first quatrain are a. b. a. b., it must necessarily--to use as refrain the first line rhyming on _a_--reverse the order for the second verse, which is therefore b. a. b. a., and so on alternately until the end of the rondeau redoublé. Specimens of its use are extant by Marot, La Fontaine, Benserade, and others, while in modern French it is not infrequent, but in English it is rare. The examples quoted in this book comprise all that diligent search could discover except one of too fugitive a character to reprint. As the poems written in this form in English show the rules of the verse as plainly as the original French, it has not been thought needful to quote one in its native tongue, especially as De Gramont, De Banville, and Jullien reprint specimens in their handbooks. A form so simple that, if well wrought, and the refrain brought in with skill, it can be read in a casual way, without discovering that it was written to exact rules, deserves more use. The disposition of the subject is excellently laid out; a "text," four "divisions," and "in conclusion," with the text repeated, is a method so familiar to Englishmen on Sundays that the order for variations on the initial theme is peculiarly easy: nor need the result be the least like a sermon, although this description of its shape is suggestive of one.

Another form, the GLOSE, resembles the Rondeau Redoublé in many ways; indeed, it may be almost looked upon as a freer form of that poem. It appears, however, to be of distinct origin, and very rare in French poetry, although much used in Spanish and Portuguese verse. It begins, like the Rondeau Redoublé, with a quatrain, here called the _texte_;--this is usually a quotation from a former poet. This text the Glose proceeds to comment on, or amplify, in four stanzas of ten lines, closing each as in the rondeau redoublé, with one of the lines of the text in the original order; but the necessity for restricting the rhymes to two is not observed here. Each stanza has the sixth, ninth, and tenth (the refrain) line, rhyming on the same sound, but the others appear to be chosen at the fancy of the writer, while the final refrain of the rondeau redoublé is also wanting in the glose. First employed solely for serious themes of religion or philosophy, it is now in France, like the once sacred triolet, devoted to parody and the lightest forms of humour. Owing to the impossibility of collating the mass of periodical literature of the last ten or fifteen years, it would be rash to say that the _glose_ has never appeared in English, but not one has been discovered to include in this book. Yet, as De Gramont places the shape among those he includes as frequently used in France, it seemed best to give here a brief outline of its form. De Banville quotes one by Jean François Sarazin formed on the sonnet "de IOB" by Benserade, where fourteen quatrains are ended by the lines of the sonnet, employed in their original order. This form offers a field for serious comment or sarcastic parody that deserves working.

The SESTINA, invented by the famous troubadour, Arnaut Daniel, at the end of the thirteenth century, has not been used in French poetry so often as the ballade and rondeau. There are specimens in the poetry of Pontus de Thyard, and one in the Pleiade of the sixteenth century, besides many others, but it has been comparatively an exotic in French poetry, as in English, until recent years. That it was used and admired by Dante and Petrarch, alone gives the sestina a royal precedence over all of the other forms. Many judges consider it to be the supreme work of poetic art in fixed forms, while others claim similar distinction for the chant royal, and not a few for the sonnet. To distinguish between the charms of these three royal forms would need a Paris, nor is it necessary to do so, since each will to his own taste, no matter who claims authority on the ever-disputed question of supreme beauty. Mr. Hueffer in his "Troubadours" has a chapter so full of interest and teeming with information of the growth of the stanza, that in despair of condensing its knowledge within the space possible here, the mere notice of it must suffice. De Gramont give the rules of the poem as written by the originator and followers in Italy, Spain, and Portugal:--

1st.--The Sestina has six stanzas, each of six lines, these being of the same length.

2nd.--The lines of the six verses end with the six same words, not rhyming with each other; these end words are chosen exclusively from two syllabled nouns.

3rd.--The arrangement of these six terminal words follows a regular law (a somewhat complex one, which is replaced in modern poetry by the one given below).

4th.--The piece closes with a three-line stanza, using the six words, three at the end; the other three, placed in the middle of its lines.

But, as now written, the words of the sestina at times rhyme with each other; if so, De Banville says they should be in two rhymes alone (as Mr. Swinburne uses them), but other writers allow three rhymes. But these details all belong to the subtle laws of the verse which it is not possible to include here. De Gramont's _Sestines_ is, perhaps, the best authority for study.

For our purpose, enough to say that the six end-words must repeat unchanged in sound and spelling throughout each succeeding verse. The order in which they occur is best expressed by a numerical formula. If the rules themselves were compressed, a more complex and incomprehensible jargon of firsts and seconds and thirds, etc., could hardly be found. The first verse has, of course, the initial order, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; the second, 6, 1, 5, 2, 4, 3; the third, 3, 6, 4, 1, 2, 5; the fourth, 5, 3, 2, 6, 1, 4; the fifth, 4, 5, 1, 3, 6, 2; the sixth, 2, 4, 6, 5, 3, 1; the last half-stanza ends with 2, 4, 6, and uses 1, 3, 5 at the beginning (not the first word always) of the line, or at the half-line in rhymes that permit their introduction there. It will be seen that no end-word occurs more than once in the same place, and that the end-word of every stanza is invariably chosen to take its place as terminal of the first line of the next verse.

As though this feat in rhyming were not complex enough, a double sestina of twelve verses of twelve lines has been sometimes written. There are two, at least, of these _tours de force_ in English--one, "The Complaint of Lisa," in Mr. Swinburne's _Poems and Ballads_, Second Series; another, by Mr. George Barlow, in _A Life's Love_, entitled "Alone." It was hoped to include these, but the required space in this little book would have excluded so many specimens of smaller poems, that the desire to make this collection as widely varied and representative as possible forbade their quotation.

THE TRIOLET, as we know it, may be regarded as almost an epitome of the other forms, in its limited space. It introduces one refrain three times, and the second refrain twice, keeps strictly to two rhymes, and is inflexible in its laws, brief though it be. One poet says of it, "It is charming--nothing can be more ingeniously mischievous, more playfully sly, than this tiny trill of epigrammatic melody turning so simply upon its own innocent axis." Those who are unaware of the rules that govern this little stanza, yet often fall in love with the verse itself, possibly because a good example has a pretty sequence of sound, that allures the ear by its musical jingle, and reads like a spontaneous and easy impromptu. Nevertheless, the subtle art needed to acquire the ease that is the charm of a good triolet is generally the result of infinite care. Few things are more simple than to write a triolet--of a sort--yet the triolet affords so little space to explain its motif, and within its five lines must tell its story, and also carry the three other repeated ones easily, and with a definite meaning. To introduce the refrain naturally as the only thing to say, and yet with an air of freshness and an unexpected recognition of a phrase heard before, is in itself no mean difficulty, even in the ballade and rondeau; but when it comes three times in eight lines, and has a second line attached to it on its first and last appearance, it is a matter of small wonder that the successful triolets are not very numerous. That the ideally perfect triolet is as yet unwritten, or at least represented by very few, it may be urged; but if that be true, it should only provoke more attempts, one would fancy. It might be pertinent to ask, if this is the chief objection, how many ideally perfect poems in any set shape, or in free form, the world acknowledges?

The triolet consists (to quote Mr. Dobson) of _eight_ lines with _two_ rhymes. The first pair of lines are repeated as the seventh and eighth, while the first is repeated as the fourth. The order of the rhymes is thus as follows:--a. b. a. a. a. b. a. b. The example (on page 214) by--of all persons in the world--a grave French magistrate, Jacques Ranchin, has been christened by Ménage the "King of _Triolets_."

The first triolet known is in the Cléomadés of Adenèz-le-Roi (1258-1297), a poem of 20,000 verses. In old examples the triolet was devoted to grave verse, but, as M. de Gramont shows, it has now not only abandoned the old ten syllable lines, and is written in those of eight and often six syllables, but from the elegiac dignity of its former subjects, it has become in French verse the form especially devoted to the most ephemeral and trivial subjects. Since M. de Banville renewed its use, triolets are common in French newspapers, and with all due deference be it said--possibly only thereby exposing my own ignorance of the subtle charm conveyed to their readers by their "argot" and "idiom"--as inferior as they are plentiful. There is one, however, that has justly won great favour since its appearance in _Odes Funnambulesques_ of M. Theodore de Banville.

These two French examples (on page 214) are hackneyed by frequent quotation, but are so generally regarded as the most successful of their class that it seemed best not to omit them, nor this one by Froissart, given in most authorities, and called a rondeau by the writer (rondel, rondeau, and triolet being evidently regarded as but one form in his day--the beginning of the fifteenth century), and the modern grouping completely unknown:--

Mon coer s'esbat en oudourant la rose
Et s'esjoïst en regardant ma dame.
Trop mieulz me vault l'une que l'autre chose,
Mon coer s'esbat en oudourant la rose,
L'oudour m'est bon, mès dou regart je n'ose
Juer trop fort, je le vous jur par m'ame
Mon coer s'esbat en oudourant la rose
Et s'esjoïst en regardant ma dame.

--_Froissart._

The weak point of the Triolet being the monotony of its refrain, every attempt, at giving a new accent to the words, short of actual punning, is welcomed as a relief. There is an air composed by Charles Delioux, to which all triolets in the pure form may be sung. De Banville quotes the melody in his "Odes Funnambulesques." Most people who have attempted to make rhymes know that when once a haunting melody gains control the words and sentences will try and fit themselves to it; so perhaps a would-be writer of triolets could secure correct form by learning this tune and writing his triolets to it. It is quite certain that this alone would not ensure a good poem, but it might keep one to the usual rhythm and exact number of syllables, with the correct musical accent, singularly near, if not identical, with the poetical one, when properly used. A quaint example found by Mr. Dobson in an old French play is given on page 214, as it has not hitherto been printed in England.

The VILLANELLE has been called "the most ravishing jewel worn by the Muse Erato." The large number of Villanelles in modern English was the most unexpected find that came to light in the course of collecting material for the present volume. Many of these fulfil a condition now held strictly binding, since promulgated by Joseph Boulmier in his own Villanelles--that is, that their length should imitate the example of Jean Passerat's famous model, and be complete in nineteen lines. The rules sound simple, and the result must read easily; but the ease is only to be attained by an elaborate amount of care in production, which those who read only would hardly suspect existed. The accepted model for all to follow will be found on page 242. The example that follows is an interesting translation by Boulmier of Mr. Dobson's Villanelle, "When I saw you last, Rose," first printed by his permission in _Longman's Magazine_ (under the heading "At the Sign of the Ship") for July 1887:--

ROSE.

Vous étiez encore petite
Rose, la dernière fois...
Dieu! que le temps passe vite.

Fleur innocente qu'abrite
Tendrement l'ombre des bois
Vous étiez encore petite.

Et déjà la marguerite
Va s'effeuillant sous vos doigts...
Dieu! que le temps passe vite!

Oh, comme se précipite
La vie. A peine j'y crois...
Vous étiez encor petite.

Dans votre sein qui palpite
Se glisse un hôte sournois...
Dieu! que le temps passe vite.

Chez vous Cupidon s'invite:
Adieu la paix d'autrefois!
Vous étiez encore petite:
Dieu! que le temps passe vite!

The Villanelle is written in five three-lined stanzas, concluding with one of four lines. It will be seen that the refrain occupies eight of the nineteen lines, and is of paramount importance; taken from the first and third line of the first stanza, the two supply alternately the last lines from the second to the fifth verse, and both conclude the quatrain which ends the villanelle. Two rhymes only are allowed. The refrains must repeat in the order quoted in the example, the first refrain to conclude the second and fifth stanzas, the second refrain for the first, third, and fifth, and both for the sixth.

"The primitive _Villanelle_ was, in truth, a 'shepherd's song,' and, according to custom, its 'thoughts should be full of sweetness and simplicity,'" a hint given in a "Note on some Foreign Forms of Verse" that has been taken to heart by later writers, who almost invariably select pastoral or idyllic subjects for this most artificial but dainty lyric. Mr. Joseph Boulmier's "_Les Villanelles_," Paris, 1878, contains a valuable essay on the history and construction of the poem, and a series of forty original Villanelles, with twenty-two other poems, all of singular beauty.

The LAI and the VIRELAI are so nearly related that they must be considered together. De Gramont says, that the _lai_ has been unused since the earliest days in French poetry, but as it is invariably quoted in all treatises on the art, he prints a seventeenth century one, evidently written as a specimen to illustrate its laws. De Banville cites the following by Pere Mourgues, from his _Traité de la Poesie_:--

LAI.

Sur l'appui du Monde
Que faut-il qu'on fonde
D'espoir?
Cette mer profonde
Et débris féconde
Fait voir
Calme au matin l'onde;
Et l'orage y gronde
Le Soir.

As no examples of the Lai are included in this volume, by the courtesy of the author I am allowed to quote the following:--

FROM OVERSEA.

From oversea--
Violets, for memories,
I send to thee.

Let them bear thought of me,
With pleasant memories
To touch the heart of thee,
Far oversea.

A little way it is for love to flee,
Love wing'd with memories,
Hither to thither oversea.

--_William Sharp._