Chapter XIV: Part TWO: I. Four-Stress Verse (7)

In like manner Mr. Swinburne says: "I must say how inexplicable it seems to me that Mr. Arnold, of all men, should be a patron of English hexameters. His own I have tried in vain to reduce by scansion into any metrical feet at all; they look like nothing on earth, and sound like anapests broken up and driven wrong.... And at best what ugly bastards of verse are these self-styled hexameters! how human tongues or hands could utter or could write them except by way of burlesque improvisation I could never imagine, and never shall." (_Essays and Studies_, p. 163.) From this condemnation Mr. Swinburne excepts only the hexameters of Dr. Hawtrey, "but that is simply a graceful interlude of pastime."

See also the essay called "Remarks on English Hexameters," in the _Horæ Hellenicæ_ of Professor John Stuart Blackie.

Hovering over the water he came, upon glittering pinions,
Living, a wonder, outgrown from the tight-laced fold of his sandals;
Bounding from billow to billow, and sweeping the crests like a sea-gull;
Leaping the gulfs of the surge, as he laughed in the joy of his leaping.
Fair and majestic he sprang to the rock; and the maiden in wonder
Gazed for a while, and then hid in the dark-rolling wave of her tresses,
Fearful, the light of her eyes; while the boy (for her sorrow had awed
him)
Blushed at her blushes, and vanished, like mist on the cliffs at the
sunrise.
Fearful at length she looked forth: he was gone: she, wild with amazement,
Wailed for her mother aloud: but the wail of the wind only answered.

(CHARLES KINGSLEY: _Andromeda_. 1858.)

Kingsley believed in the possibility of representing the quantitative verse of classical poetry in English, and at the same time holding to genuinely English rhythm.[46] Thus he tried to introduce more real spondees into his hexameters than Longfellow and others had done. Compare such a line as Longfellow's--

"Man is unjust, but God is just; and finally justice"--

with Kingsley's--

"Then as a pine upon Ida when south-west winds blow landward."

In the former the dissyllabic feet are in no sense spondees; in the latter there is an effort to fill them with genuinely long syllables.

Lover whose vehement kisses on lips irresponsive are squandered,
Lover that wooest in vain Earth's imperturbable heart;
Athlete mightily frustrate, who pittest thy thews against legions,
Locked with fantastical hosts, bodiless arms of the sky;
Sea that breakest for ever, that breakest and never art broken,
Like unto thine, from of old, springeth the spirit of man,--
Nature's wooer and fighter, whose years are a suit and a wrestling,
All their hours, from his birth, hot with desire and with fray.

(WILLIAM WATSON: _Hymn to the Sea_, ii.)

Here the alternate lines represent the "pentameter" of the Latin elegiac verse, where the light syllables were omitted at the cesura and the end of the line.

When they came to the fair-flowing river and to the places
Where stood pools in plenty prepared, and water abundant
Gushed up, a cure for things manifold uncleanly, the mules were
Unyoked from the waggons, driven off to the bindweed pastures
By the rushing swirling river, and the women set about it
Unloading the waggons, carrying clothes down to the water,
One with other striving, stepping hastily into the wash-troughs.
When washing and rinsing were done, they brought the linen down
On to the sea-shore, and set it all out thereupon in rows
Where the pebbles thrown up by the waves most thickly abounded.

(WILLIAM JOHNSON STONE: Translation of _Odyssey_, vi. 85 ff., in _The Use of Classical Measures in English_. 1899.)

Mr. Stone, like the Elizabethan classical versifiers, seeks to write purely quantitative verse in English, and, so far from aiming at the same time to preserve the rhythm of the usual English hexameter, he regards the clash between accent and quantity as a beauty rather than a defect. The verses he intends to be read "with the natural accent unimpaired," the reader listening for the regular quantities at the same time.

The views of Mr. Stone on the nature of English accent and quantity
are perhaps unique among modern writers on the subject. "The
ordinary unemphatic English accent is exactly a raising of pitch,
and nothing more," as in Greek. "The accent of emphasis is
something quite different in character from the ordinary accent."
To those who insist that to them the second syllable of
_carpenter_ is distinctly short, Mr. Stone replies: "You are
associating yourselves by such an admission with the vulgar actors
of Plautus rather than the educated readers of Virgil;"--a truly
terrible charge! Mr. Stone gives an interesting critical history of
earlier efforts to introduce classical measures into English. His
monograph is reprinted, but without the specimen translation, as
the second part of the 1901 edition of Robert Bridges's _Milton's
Prosody_.

For further discussion of the relations of classical and English
prosody, and of accent and quantity in English, see Schipper, vol.
i. pp. 21-27; A. J. Ellis: article in the _Transactions of the
Philological Society_, 1875-1876; T. D. Goodell: article on
"Quantity in English Verse," in the _Proceedings of the American
Philological Society_, 1885; Edmund Gurney: _The Power of Sound_,
pp. 429-439; J. M. Robertson: Appendix to _New Essays towards a
Critical Method_, 1897; and the discussion in Part Three of the
present volume.

FOOTNOTES:

[42] Puttenham's treatise on English poetry, which followed Webbe's (1589), and was the most thorough treatment of the subject written in the Elizabethan period, also discussed the "reformed versifying," but with less respect. The chapter is entitled: "How if all maner of sodaine innovations were not very scandalous, specially in the lawes of any langage or arte, the use of the Greeke and Latine feete might be brought into our vulgar Poesie, and with good grace inough." (Arber Reprint of _The Arte of English Poesie_, p. 126.) Puttenham seems to see the relations of quantity and accent somewhat more clearly than most of his contemporaries, and while he gives rules for adapting English words to quantitative prosody, he is disposed to think that "peradventure with us Englishmen it be somewhat too late to admit a new invention of feete and times that our forefathers never used nor never observed till this day" (p. 132).

[43] Campion's _Observations_ are reprinted in Mr. Bullen's edition of his poems, and also in Rhys's _Literary Pamphlets_, vol. i. His attack on the customary English rimed verse was answered by the poet laureate, Samuel Daniel, who published in the same year (1602) his _Defence of Ryme against a Pamphlet entituled Observations in the Art of English Poesie_. "Wherein is demonstratively prooved that Ryme is the fittest harmonie of words that comports with our Language." Daniel struck at the root of all the principles of the classical versifiers,--the supreme authority of the classics. "We are the children of nature as well as they," he exclaims with reference to the ancients. "It is not the observing of Trochaiques nor their Iambiques, that will make our writings ought the wiser." And he expounds the English accentual verse-system with clearness and vigor. This essay of Daniel's may be said to mark the end, if it did not bring about the end, of the Elizabethan experiments in classical metres. For other contemporary criticism of the effort, see under the following section, on the Hexameter.

[44] On the history of the English hexameter, see the admirable account in Mayor's _Chapters on English Metre_, 2d ed., chap. xv.

[45] Southey's effort was attacked by the Rev. S. Tillbrook, Fellow of Peterhouse, in a pamphlet entitled "Historical and Critical Remarks upon the Modern Hexameters, and upon Mr. Southey's _Vision of Judgment_." To this Southey replied in the second edition of his poem, saying to Mr. Tillbrook: "You try the measure by Greek and Latin prosody: you might as well try me by the Laws of Solon, or the Twelve Tables. I have distinctly stated that the English hexameter is not constructed upon those canons." He further appealed to the success of the hexameter in Germany, and concluded: "I am glad that I have made the experiment, and quite satisfied with the result. The critics who write and talk are with you: so I dare say are the whole posse of schoolmasters. The women, the young poets, and the _docile bairns_ are with me." (_Op. cit._, Preface to the Present Edition, pp. xix, xxi.)

[46] For Kingsley's exposition of his theories, see the _Letters and Memories_, edited by his wife, vol. i. pp. 338-344. He declined to yield to "trocheism one atom. My ear always demands the equivalent of the 'lost short syllable.'" And again: "Every argument you bring convinces me more and more that the theory of our prosody depending on accent is false, and that it really is very nearly identical with the Greek.... I am glad to hear (being a lazy man) that I have more license than I wish for; but I do think that, with proper care, you may have as many spondees, without hurting the rhythm, in English as you have in Greek, and my ear is tortured by a trochee instead.... I must try for Homer's average of a spondee a line."

VII. IMITATIONS OF ARTIFICIAL FRENCH LYRICAL FORMS

A number of artificial lyrical forms, originating in the ingenuity of the mediæval Provençal poets, were adopted by the Middle English imitators of the Romance lyrists, and were revived with no little vigor in the Victorian period. Chief among the influential models for these forms, in early times, were the poems of Machault (1284-1377), Deschamps (1328-1415), Froissart (1337-1410), and Villon (1431-1485). Again in the seventeenth century such forms as the rondeau were revived in France by Voiture (1598-1648), but with little effect in England. Finally, in the nineteenth century, the forms were reintroduced by M. Théodore de Banville, and later into England by Mr. Lang, Mr. Austin Dobson, Mr. Gosse, and others. For the history of these fashions in outline, see the admirable introduction to Mr. Gleeson White's _Ballades and Rondeaus_ (1893); also Mr. Andrew Lang's _Lays and Lyrics of Old France_ (1872); Mr. Austin Dobson's "Note on some Foreign Forms of Verse," in the collection of _Latter Day Lyrics_ (1878); and an article by Mr. Edmund Gosse in the _Cornhill Magazine_, July, 1877.

Says Mr. Dobson: "It may be conceded that the majority of the forms now in question are not at present suited for ... the treatment of grave or elevated themes. What is modestly advanced for some of them ... is that they may add a new charm of buoyancy,--a lyric freshness,--to amatory and familiar verse, already too much condemned to faded measures and out-worn cadences. Further, ... that they are admirable vehicles for the expression of trifles or _jeux d'esprit_. They have also a humbler and obscurer use. If, to quote the once-hackneyed, but now too-much-forgotten maxim of Pope--

'Those move easiest that have learned to dance,'

what better discipline, among others, could possibly be devised for 'those about to versify' than a course of Rondeaux, Triolets, and Ballades?" Mr. Dobson refers to the article by Mr. Gosse already cited, and "to the _Odes Funambulesques_, the _Petit Traité de Poésie Française_, and other works of M. Théodore de Banville. To M. de Banville in particular and to the second French Romantic School in general, the happy modernization in France of the old measures of Marot, Villon, and Charles of Orleans is mainly to be ascribed." (_Latter Day Lyrics_, ed. W. D. Adams, pp. 334 ff.)[47]

Says Mr. Gleeson White: "The taste for these _tours de force_ in the art of verse-making is no doubt an acquired one; yet to quote the first attempt to produce a lyric with a repeated burden would take one back to the earliest civilization.... Whether the first refrains were used for decorative effect only, or to give the singer time to recollect or improvise the next verse, it matters little, since the once mere adjunct was made in later French use an integral and vital part of the verse. The charm of these strictly written verses is undoubtedly increased by some knowledge of their technical rules.... To approach ideal perfection, nothing less than implicit obedience to all the rules is the first element of success; but the task is by no means finished there. Every quality that poetry demands, whether clearness of thought, elegance of expression, harmonious sound, or faultless rhythm, is needed as much in these shapes as in unfettered verse.... It may be said, without fear of exaggeration, that all the qualities required to form a perfect lyric in poetry are equally needful here, _plus_ a great many special ones the forms themselves demand. To the students of any art there is always a peculiar charm when the highest difficulties are surmounted with such ease that the consummate art is hidden to all who know not the magic password to unveil it." (_Ballades and Rondeaus_, Introduction, pp. xli, xlii.) "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 obtained. 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." (_Ib._, pp. l, li.)

A.--THE BALLADE

The ballade commonly consists of three stanzas, with an envoy. In modern usage the stanzas usually contain either eight or ten lines, and the envoy half as many as the stanza; but in earlier usage both stanza and envoy varied, and the latter might be omitted altogether. The rimes in all the stanzas must be identical in the corresponding lines, but the riming words must be different. The most characteristic element is the refrain,--the keynote of the poem,--which forms the last line of each stanza, including the envoy. The favorite rime-scheme for the eight-line stanza is _ababbcbc_, with the envoy _bcbc_. Mr. White says of the envoy that it "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."

Flee fro the prees, and dwelle with sothfastnesse,
Suffyce unto thy good, though hit be smal;
For hord hath hate, and climbing tikelnesse,
Prees hath envye, and wele blent overal;
Savour no more than thee bihove shal;
Werk wel thy-self, that other folk canst rede;
And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede.

Tempest thee noght al croked to redresse,
In trust of hir that turneth as a bal:
Gret reste slant in litel besinesse;
And eek be war to sporne ageyn an al;
Stryve noght, as doth the crokke with the wal.
Daunte thy-self, that dauntest otheres dede;
And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede.

That thee is sent, receyve in buxumnesse;
The wrastling for this worlde axeth a fal.
Her nis non hoom, her nis but wildernesse:
Forth, pilgrim, forth! Forth, beste, out of thy stal!
Know thy contree, look up, thank God of al;
Hold the hye wey, and lat thy gost thee lede:
And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede.

_Envoy_

Therfore, thou vache, leve thyn old wrecchednesse
Unto the worlde; leve now to be thral;
Crye him mercy, that of his hy goodnesse
Made thee of noght, and in especial
Draw unto him, and pray in general
For thee, and eek for other, hevenlich mede;
And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede.

(CHAUCER: _Balade de bon conseyl._ ab. 1385.)

Here Chaucer follows the rules of the ballade carefully, but in the "rime royal" stanza. It will be noticed that the rime-word "al" seems to be repeated, but it is used each time in a distinct sense, hence--according to the rules of Chaucer's time, as of modern French--is regarded as a different rime-word each time.

Compare, also, Chaucer's _Fortune_ ("_Balades de visage sanz
peinture_"), made of three ballades, with one envoy; the _Balade to
Rosemound_ and _Moral Balade on Gentilesse_, without envoys; the
ballades on _Lak of Stedfastnesse_ and the _Compleint of Chaucer to
his Empty Purse_, with envoys addressed to the king; also the
ballade in the Prologue to the _Legend of Good Women_, B-text, ll.
249-269. The _Compleynt of Venus_, like _Fortune_, is in three
ballades, with one envoy, and is of special interest as being based
on three French ballades of Graunson.[48] Says Chaucer:

"And eek to me hit is a greet penaunce,
Sith rym in English hath swich scarsitee,
To folowe word by word the curiositee
Of Graunson, flour of hem that make in Fraunce."

In the Prologue to the _Legend of Good Women_, when Chaucer is
accused by the god of love for his translation of the _Romance of
the Rose_, Alcestis defends him by enumerating his other works,
which include:

"many an ympne for your halydayes,
That highten Balades, Roundels, Virelayes."

(B-text, ll. 422 f.)

On the roundels, see below; none of Chaucer's virelays have come
down to us. Chaucer's contemporary, John Gower, also wrote
ballades, but in French.

Tell me now in what hidden way is
Lady Flora the lovely Roman?
Where's Hipparcha, and where is Thais,
Neither of them the fairer woman?
Where is Echo, beheld of no man,
Only heard on river and mere,--
She whose beauty was more than human?--
But where are the snows of yester-year?

Where's Héloise, the learned nun,
For whose sake Abeillard, I ween,
Lost manhood and put priesthood on?
(From love he won such dule and teen!)
And where, I pray you, is the Queen
Who willed that Buridan should steer
Sewed in a sack's mouth down the Seine?--
But where are the snows of yester-year?

White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies,
With a voice like any mermaiden,--
Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice,
And Ermengarde the lady of Maine,--
And that good Joan whom Englishmen
At Rouen doomed and burned her there,--
Mother of God, where are they then?--
But where are the snows of yester-year?--

Nay, never ask this week, fair lord,
Where they are gone, nor yet this year,
Except with this for an overword,--
But where are the snows of yester-year?

(ROSSETTI: _The Ballad of Dead Ladies_, from the French of François Villon, 1450.)

This is a notable translation of a notable ballade, but it will be observed that it does not follow the strict rules as to the number of rimes. In Mr. Andrew Lang's _Ballades of Blue China_ is a formally correct translation.

Where are the cities of the plain?
And where the shrines of rapt Bethel?
And Calah, built of Tubal-Cain?
And Shinar whence King Amraphal
Came out in arms, and fought, and fell,
Decoyed into the pits of slime
By Siddim, and sent sheer to hell;
Where are the cities of old time?

Where now is Karnak, that great fane
With granite built, a miracle?
And Luxor smooth without a stain,
Whose graven scriptures still we spell?
The jackal and the owl may tell,
Dark snakes around their ruins climb,
They fade like echo in a shell;
Where are the cities of old time?

And where is white Shusan, again,
Where Vashti's beauty bore the bell,
And all the Jewish oil and grain
Were brought to Mithridath to sell,
Where Nehemiah would not dwell,
Because another town sublime
Decoyed him with her oracle?
Where are the cities of old time?

_Envoy_

Prince, with a dolorous, ceaseless knell,
Above their wasted toil and crime
The waters of oblivion swell:
Where are the cities of old time?

(EDMUND GOSSE: _Ballad of Dead Cities._)

In this ballade Mr. Gosse finely reproduces the more serious tones of the old form, and imitates the ancient custom of addressing the envoy to royalty. This _motif_, of old things lost, is a favorite one for the serious ballade, being suggested by Villon's _Ballade of Dead Ladies_. Compare Mr. Lang's _Ballade of Dead Cities_, in _Ballades of Blue China_.

On the other hand, the next specimen illustrates the use of the form for the light familiarity of _vers de société_ and parody.

He lived in a cave by the seas,
He lived upon oysters and foes,
But his list of forbidden degrees
An extensive morality shows;
Geological evidence goes
To prove he had never a pan,
But he shaved with a shell when he chose,
'Twas the manner of Primitive Man!

He worshipp'd the rain and the breeze,
He worshipp'd the river that flows,
And the Dawn, and the Moon, and the trees,
And bogies, and serpents, and crows;
He buried his dead with their toes
Tucked up, an original plan,
Till their knees came right under their nose,
'Twas the manner of Primitive Man!

His communal wives, at his ease,
He would curb with occasional blows;
Or his state had a queen, like the bees
(As another philosopher trows):
When he spoke it was never in prose,
But he sang in a strain that would scan,
For (to doubt it, perchance, were morose)
'Twas the manner of Primitive Man!

_Envoy_

Max, proudly your Aryans pose,
But their rigs they undoubtedly ran,
For, as every Darwinian knows,
'Twas the manner of Primitive Man!

(ANDREW LANG: _Ballade of Primitive Man._)

In Mr. Lang's _Ballades of Blue China_ this appears as a _double ballade_, with three more stanzas.

From the sunny climes of France,
Flying to the west,
Came a flock of birds by chance,
There to sing and rest:
Of some secrets deep in quest,--
Justice for their wrongs,--
Seeking one to shield their breast,
One to write their songs.

Melodies of old romance,
Joy and gentle jest,
Notes that made the dull heart dance
With a merry zest;--
Maids in matchless beauty drest,
Youths in happy throngs;--
These they sang to tempt and test
One to write their songs.

In old London's wide expanse
Built each feathered guest,--
Man's small pleasure to entrance,
Singing him to rest,--
Came, and tenderly confessed,
Perched on leafy prongs,
Life were sweet if they possessed
One to write their songs.

_Envoy_

Austin, it was you they blest:
Fame to you belongs!
Time has proven you're the best
One to write their songs.

(FRANK DEMPSTER SHERMAN: _To Austin Dobson._)

Mr. Austin Dobson is said to have been the first to reintroduce the ballade into English poetry, and the present specimen is a tribute to his success by an American poet.

Bird of the bitter bright gray golden morn
Scarce risen upon the dusk of dolorous years,
First of us all and sweetest singer born
Whose far shrill note the world of new men hears
Cleave the cold shuddering shade as twilight clears;
When song new-born put off the old world's attire
And felt its tune on her changed lips expire,
Writ foremost on the roll of them that came
Fresh girt for service of the latter lyre,
Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name!

(SWINBURNE: _Ballad of François Villon, Prince of all Ballad-Makers_, st. i.)

This specimen represents the ballade in ten-line stanzas.

There is also an extended form of the ballade, called the _Chant Royal_, with five stanzas and envoy, the stanzas consisting of eleven verses. The usual rime-scheme is _ababccddede_, with envoy _ddede_. For admirable specimens, see Mr. Dobson's _Dance of Death_ and Mr. Gosse's _Praise of Dionysus_, in _Ballades and Rondeaus_, pp. 98, 100. Mr. White says of this form: "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, the monotony of its sixty-one lines rhymed on five sounds is unbearable." (_Ballades and Rondeaus_, Introduction, p. liv.)

B.--THE RONDEAU AND RONDEL

_Rondel_ is the old French form of the word _rondeau_, and the terms are therefore naturally interchangeable. They have been applied to a number of different forms, all characterized by a refrain so repeated as to link together different parts of the structure. Two of these forms are particularly familiar. The first (called more commonly the _rondel_) consists of fourteen lines, with only two rimes; the first two lines constitute the refrain, and are commonly repeated as the seventh and eighth and again as the thirteenth and fourteenth. The rime-scheme varies, but is often _ABba, abAB, abbaAB_ (the capitals indicating the repeated lines of the refrain). Sometimes the form is shortened to thirteen lines, the second line of the refrain not being repeated at the close. The second principal form (called more commonly the _rondeau_) consists of thirteen lines, with two rimes, and an unrimed refrain, taken from the opening words of the first line, which follows the eighth line and is again repeated at the end. The common rime-scheme is _aabba,aab (refrain), aabba (refrain)_. Both these forms are found in early French poetry, together with many variations. The modern distinction between _rondeau_ and _rondel_ is artificial but convenient.

i. _"Rondel" Type_

Now welcom somer, with thy sonne softe,
That hast this wintres weders over-shake,
And driven awey the longe nightes blake!

Seynt Valentyn, that art ful hy on-lofte,
Thus singen smale foules for thy sake:
Now welcom somer, with thy sonne softe,
That hast this wintres weders over-shake.

Wel han they cause for to gladen ofte,
Sith ech of hem recovered hath his make;
Ful blisful may they singen whan they wake:
Now welcom somer, with thy sonne softe,
That hast this wintres weders over-shake,
And driven awey the longe nightes blake.

(CHAUCER: _Qui bien aime a tard oublie_, in _The Parlement of Foules_, ll. 680-692. ab. 1380.)

This is the "roundel" sung by the birds "to do Nature honour and plesaunce." "The note" we are told was made in France. It will be seen that Chaucer employs a form with three-line refrain, of which the first two lines are twice repeated, the last only once: _ABB,abAB,abbABB_. The same form is used in the three roundels of _Merciles Beaute_.

Too hard it is to sing
In these untuneful times,
When only coin can ring,
And no one cares for rhymes!

Alas! for him who climbs
To Aganippe's spring:--
Too hard it is to sing
In these untuneful times!

His kindred clip his wing;
His feet the critic limes;
If Fame her laurel bring
Old age his forehead rimes:--
Too hard it is to sing
In these untuneful times!

(AUSTIN DOBSON: _Too hard it is to sing._)

Underneath this tablet rest,
Grasshopper by autumn slain,
Since thine airy summer nest
Shivers under storm and rain.

Freely let it be confessed
Death and slumber bring thee gain
Spared from winter's fret and pain,
Underneath this tablet rest.

Myro found thee on the plain,
Bore thee in her lawny breast,
Reared this marble tomb amain
To receive so small a guest!
Underneath this tablet rest,
Grasshopper by autumn slain.

(EDMUND GOSSE: _After Anyte of Tegea._)

In this the second line of the refrain is omitted where we should expect it as line eight, the scheme of the first part of the rondel being changed to _ABab, abbA_.

The ways of Death are soothing and serene,
And all the words of Death are grave and sweet.
From camp and church, the fireside and the street,
She signs to come, and strife and song have been.

A summer night descending, cool and green
And dark, on daytime's dust and stress and heat,
The ways of Death are soothing and serene,
And all the words of Death are grave and sweet.

O glad and sorrowful, with triumphant mien
And hopeful faces look upon and greet
This last of all your lovers, and to meet
Her kiss, the Comforter's, your spirit lean.--
The ways of Death are soothing and serene.

(W. E. HENLEY: _The Ways of Death._)

ii. _"Rondeau" Type_

Ma foi, c'est fait de moi, car Isabeau
M'a conjuré de lui faire un rondeau.
Cela me met en peine extrême.
Quoi! treize vers, huit en _-èau_, cinq en _-ème!_
Je lui ferais aussitôt un bateau.

En voilà cinq pourtant en un monceau,
Faisons-en huit, en invoquant Brodeau,
Et puis mettons, par quelque stratagème:
Ma foi, c'est fait.

Si je pouvais encore de mon cerveau
Tirer cinq vers, l'ouvrage serait beau;
Mais cependant je suis dedans l'onzième:
Et si je crois que je fais le douzième,
En voilà treize ajustés au niveau.
Ma foi, c'est fait!

(VOITURE: _Rondeau_, ab. 1640. In _[OE]uvres de Voiture_, ed. Ubicini, vol. ii. p. 314.)

This is perhaps the most famous of rondeaus of the type which Voiture did much to make popular.

What no pardy ye may be sure
Thinck not to make me to yor lure
With wordes and chere so contrarieng
Swete and sowre contrewaing
To much it were still to endure
Trouth is tryed where craft is in ure
But though ye have had my herte cure
Trow ye I dote withoute ending
What no pardy
Though that with pain I do procure
For to forgett that ons was pure
Wtin my hert shall still that thing
Unstable unsure and wavering
Be in my mynde without recure
What no pardye.

(SIR THOMAS WYATT: Rondeau in Wyatt MS., reproduced in _Anglia_, vol. xviii. p. 478. ab. 1540.)

Besides the rondeaus found in the Wyatt MS., three poems of Wyatt's, published in Tottel's _Songs and Sonnets_ (1557), were evidently intended as rondeaus (see Arber's Reprint, pp. 53, 73). The editor, not understanding the form or thinking it too unfamiliar to be popular, seems to have changed it to a sort of sonnet, omitting the refrain at the end and making a complete line of it as the ninth of the poem. These hidden rondeaus were discussed by Mr. Dobson in the _Athenæum_ for 1878 (vol. i. p. 380); see also Alscher's _Sir Thomas Wyatt und seine Stellung_, etc.

Thou fool! if madness be so rife,
That, spite of wit, thou'lt have a wife,
I'll tell thee what thou must expect--
After the honeymoon neglect,
All the sad days of thy whole life;

To that a world of woe and strife,
Which is of marriage the effect--
And thou thy woe's own architect,
Thou fool!

Thou'lt nothing find but disrespect,
Ill words i' th' scolding dialect,
For she'll all tabor be, or fife;
Then prythee go and whet thy knife,
And from this fate thyself protect,
Thou fool!

(CHARLES COTTON: _Rondeau._ ab. 1675. Quoted by Guest, _English Rhythms_, Skeat ed., p. 645.)

A good rondeau I was induced to show
To some fair ladies some short while ago;
Well knowing their ability and taste,
I asked should aught be added or effaced,
And prayed that every fault they'd make me know.

The first did her most anxious care bestow
To impress one point from which I ne'er should go:
"Upon a good beginning must be based
A good rondeau."

Zeal bid the other's choicest language glow:
She softly said: "Recount your weal or woe,
Your every subject, free from pause or haste;
Ne'er let your hero fail, nor be disgraced."
The third: "With varying emphasis should flow
A good rondeau."

(J. R. BEST: _Ung Bon Rondeau_, in _Rondeaulx_. Translated from the French, ed. 1527. 1838. Quoted in _Ballades and Rondeaus_, Introduction, p. xxxviii.)

Death, of thee do I make my moan,
Who hadst my lady away from me,
Nor wilt assuage thine enmity
Till with her life thou hast my own;
For since that hour my strength has flown.
Lo! what wrong was her life to thee,
Death?

Two we were, and the heart was one;
Which now being dead, dead I must be,
Or seem alive as lifelessly
As in the choir the painted stone,
Death!

(ROSSETTI: _To Death, of his Lady_, from the French of Villon, 1450.)

This represents an early short form of the rondeau.

With pipe and flute the rustic Pan
Of old made music sweet for man;
And wonder hushed the warbling bird,
And closer drew the calm-eyed herd,--
The rolling river slowlier ran.

Ah! would,--ah! would, a little span,
Some air of Arcady could fan
This age of ours, too seldom stirred
With pipe and flute!

But now for gold we plot and plan;
And from Beersheba unto Dan
Apollo's self might pass unheard,
Or find the night-jar's note preferred.--
Not so it fared, when time began
With pipe and flute!

(AUSTIN DOBSON: _With Pipe and Flute._)

What is to come we know not. But we know
That what has been was good--was good to show,
Better to hide, and best of all to bear.
We are the masters of the days that were:
We have lived, we have loved, we have suffered--even so.

Shall we not take the ebb who had the flow?
Life was our friend. Now, if it be our foe--
Dear, though it break and spoil us!--need we care
What is to come?

Let the great winds their worst and wildest blow,
Or the gold weather round us mellow slow:
We have fulfilled ourselves, and we can dare
And we can conquer, though we may not share
In the rich quiet of the afterglow
What is to come.

(W. E. HENLEY: _What is to Come._)

A man must live! We justify
Low shift and trick to treason high,
A little vote for a little gold,
To a whole senate bought and sold,
With this self-evident reply.

But is it so? Pray tell me why
Life at such cost you have to buy?
In what religion were you told
"A man must live"?

There are times when a man must die.
Imagine for a battle-cry
From soldiers with a sword to hold--
From soldiers with the flag unrolled--
This coward's whine, this liar's lie,
"A man must live"!

(CHARLOTTE PERKINS STETSON: _A Man Must Live._)

A Roundel is wrought as a ring or a starbright sphere,
With craft of delight and with cunning of sound unsought,
That the heart of the hearer may smile if to pleasure his ear
A roundel is wrought.

Its jewel of music is carven of all or of aught--
Love, laughter, or mourning--remembrance of rapture or fear--
That fancy may fashion to hang in the ear of thought.

As a bird's quick song runs round, and the hearts in us hear--
Pause answers to pause, and again the same strain caught,
So moves the device whence, round as a pearl or tear,
A roundel is wrought.

(SWINBURNE: _The Roundel_, in _A Century of Roundels_.)

Mr. Swinburne has reintroduced the old word-form "roundel," to distinguish this style of rondeau, of his own devising, with nine long lines, riming _aba, bab, aba_, the refrain riming also with the _b_ lines.

C.--THE VILLANELLE

This highly intricate form was originally used for pastoral or idyllic verse, and it is commonly reserved, as Mr. Dobson observes, for subjects "full of sweetness and simplicity." In its typical form it consists of nineteen lines, divided into five groups or stanzas of three and one of four. There are but two rimes, and the two verses which constitute the refrain recur again and again, line 1 reappearing as line 6, line 12, and line 18, while line 3 reappears as line 9, line 15, and line 19. The rime scheme of all the tercets is _aba_, of the conclusion _abaa_. Those villanelles are considered most highly finished in which the refrain recurs with slightly different significations.

On the history of this form, see J. Boulmier's _Les Villanelles_, Paris, 1878. The modern development of the villanelle has been largely influenced by the work of Passerat (1534-1602), whose most famous villanelle is the following specimen:

J'ay perdu ma tourterelle;
Est-ce-point elle que j'oy?
Je veux aller après elle.

Tu regrettes ta femelle;
Hélas! aussy fay-je moy:
J'ay perdu ma tourterelle.

Si ton amour est fidèle,
Aussy est ferme ma foy;
Je veux aller après elle.

Ta plainte se renouvelle?
Toujours plaindre je me doy:
J'ay perdu ma tourterelle.

En ne voyant plus la belle
Plus rien de beau je ne voy:
Je veux aller après elle.

Mort, que tant de fois j'apelle,
Prens ce que se donne à toy:
J'ai perdu ma tourterelle.
Je veux aller après elle.

(JEAN PASSERAT: _Villanelle._)

When I saw you last, Rose,
You were only so high;--
How fast the time goes!

Like a bud ere it blows,
You just peeped at the sky,
When I saw you last, Rose!

Now your petals unclose,
Now your May-time is nigh;--
How fast the time goes!

And a life,--how it grows!
You were scarcely so shy
When I saw you last, Rose!

In your bosom it shows
There's a guest on the sly;
How fast the time goes!

Is it Cupid? Who knows!
Yet you used not to sigh,
When I saw you last, Rose;--
How fast the time goes!

(AUSTIN DOBSON: _When I Saw You Last, Rose._)

A dainty thing's the Villanelle.
Sly, musical, a jewel in rhyme,
It serves its purpose passing well.

A double-clappered silver bell
That must be made to clink in chime,
A dainty thing's the Villanelle;

And if you wish to flute a spell,
Or ask a meeting 'neath the lime,
It serves its purpose passing well.

You must not ask of it the swell
Of organs grandiose and sublime--
A dainty thing's the Villanelle;

And, filled with sweetness, as a shell
Is filled with sound, and launched in time,
It serves its purpose passing well.

Still fair to see and good to smell
As in the quaintness of its prime,
A dainty thing's the Villanelle,
It serves its purpose passing well.

(W. E. HENLEY: _Villanelle._)

Wouldst thou not be content to die
When low-hung fruit is hardly clinging
And golden Autumn passes by?

Beneath this delicate rose-gray sky,
While sunset bells are faintly ringing,
Wouldst thou not be content to die?

For wintry webs of mist on high
Out of the muffled earth are springing,
And golden Autumn passes by.

O now when pleasures fade and fly,
And Hope her southward flight is winging,
Wouldst thou not be content to die?

Lest Winter come, with wailing cry
His cruel icy bondage bringing,
When golden Autumn hath passed by;

And thou with many a tear and sigh,
While life her wasted hands is wringing,
Shall pray in vain for leave to die
When golden Autumn hath passed by.

(EDMUND GOSSE: _Villanelle._)

Spring knocks at winter's frosty door:
In boughs by wild March breezes swayed
The bonnie bluebirds sing once more.

The brooks have burst their fetters hoar,
And greet with noisy glee the glade;
Spring knocks at winter's frosty door.

The swallow soon will northward soar,
The rush uplift its gleaming blade,
The bonnie bluebirds sing once more.

Soon sunny skies their gold will pour
O'er meads that breezy maples shade;
Spring knocks at winter's frosty door.

Along the reedy river's shore,
Fleet fauns will frolic unafraid,
The bonnie bluebirds sing once more.

And Love, the Love we lost of yore,
Will come to twine the myrtle braid;
Spring knocks at winter's frosty door,
The bonnie bluebirds sing once more.

(CLINTON SCOLLARD: _Spring Knocks at Winter's Frosty Door._)

D.--THE TRIOLET

The triolet is really a diminutive form of the Rondeau, and was not originally distinguished by name. It consists of eight lines, with two rimes, lines 1 and 2 recurring as lines 7 and 8, and line 1 also as line 4. The rime-scheme is _ABaAabAB_. Here, as in the villanelle, a change of signification in the repeated lines is thought to add to the charm of the form.

A French specimen, from Ranchin, is cited by Mr. Gleeson White as being called by some "the king of triolets":

Le premier jour du mois de mai
Fut le plus heureux de ma vie:
Le beau dessein que je formai,
Le premier jour du mois de mai!
Je vous vis et je vous aimai.
Si ce dessein vous plut, Sylvie,
Le premier jour du mois de mai
Fut le plus heureux de ma vie.

Easy is the Triolet,
If you really learn to make it!
Once a neat refrain you get,
Easy is the Triolet.
As you see!--I pay my debt
With another rhyme. Deuce take it,
Easy is the Triolet,
If you really learn to make it!

(W. E. HENLEY.)

Rose kissed me to-day,
Will she kiss me to-morrow?
Let it be as it may,
Rose kissed me to-day.
But the pleasure gives way
To a savor of sorrow;--
Rose kissed me to-day,--
_Will_ she kiss me to-morrow?

I intended an Ode,
And it turned to a Sonnet.
It began _à la mode_,
I intended an Ode;
But Rose crossed the road
In her latest new bonnet.
I intended an Ode,
And it turned to a Sonnet.

(AUSTIN DOBSON: _Rose Leaves._)

In an earlier version of this last "rose-leaf" the ode is said to have "turned into triolets," when Rose crossed the road "with a bunch of fresh violets."

A little kiss when no one sees,
Where is the impropriety?
How sweet amid the birds and bees
A little kiss when no one sees!
Nor is it wrong, the world agrees,
If taken with sobriety.
A little kiss when no one sees,
Where is the impropriety?

(SAMUEL MINTURN PECK: _Under the Rose._)

Worldly designs, fears, hopes, farewell!
Farewell all earthly joys and cares!
On nobler thoughts my soul shall dwell!
Worldly designs, fears, hopes, farewell!
At quiet, in my peaceful cell,
I'll think on God, free from your snares;
Worldly designs, fears, hopes, farewell!
Farewell all earthly joys and cares!

(PATRICK CAREY: in _Trivial Poems and Triolets_, 1651; reprinted by Scott, 1819; this triolet also quoted in _Ballades and Rondeaus_, Introduction, p. xxxvi.)

Originally, the triolet was often used for serious sentiment. The present and the following specimen are rare instances of its serious use in English.

In his arms thy silly lamb
Lo! he gathers to his breast!
See, thou sadly bleating dam,
See him lift thy silly lamb!
Hear it cry, "How blest I am!--
Here is love and love is rest."
In his arms thy silly lamb
See him gather to his breast!

(GEORGE MACDONALD.)

E.--THE SESTINA

This form, although originally found in Provençal like the others of the group, has been more used in Italy than in France, and, as the English form of the word indicates, was introduced into England under Italian influence. It was invented at the end of the thirteenth century, by the troubadour Arnaut Daniel, celebrated in the following specimen. The common form of the sestina has six stanzas of six lines each, with a tercet at the end. There is usually no rime, but the stanzas are based on six end-words, which are the same in all stanzas; in the tercet three of these words are used in the middle of the lines, and three at the ends. The order of the end-words changes in each stanza according to a complex system: thus (in the common modern form) if the end-words of the first stanza be represented by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, the order in the second stanza will be 6, 1, 5, 2, 4, 3; in the third, 3, 6, 4, 1, 2, 5; in the fourth, 5, 3, 2, 6, 1, 4; in the fifth, 4, 5, 1, 3, 6, 2; in the sixth, 2, 4, 6, 5, 3, 1. Sometimes the end-words also rime by twos and threes.

In fair Provence, the land of lute and rose,
Arnaut, great master of the lore of love,
First wrought sestines to win his lady's heart;
For she was deaf when simpler staves he sang,
And for her sake he broke the bonds of rhyme,
And in this subtler measure hid his woe.

"Harsh be my lines," cried Arnaut, "harsh the woe,
My lady, that enthroned and cruel rose,
Inflicts on him that made her live in rhyme!"
But through the metre spake the voice of Love,
And like a wildwood nightingale he sang
Who thought in crabbed lays to ease his heart.

It is not told if her untoward heart
Was melted by her poet's lyric woe,
Or if in vain so amorously he sang.
Perchance through crowd of dark conceits he rose
To nobler heights of philosophic love,
And crowned his later years with sterner rhyme.

This thing alone we know: the triple rhyme
Of him who bared his vast and passionate heart
To all the crossing flames of hate and love,
Wears in the midst of all its storm and woe--
As some loud morn of March may bear a rose--
The impress of a song that Arnaut sang.

"Smith of his mother-tongue," the Frenchman sang
Of Lancelot and of Galahad, the rhyme
That beat so bloodlike at its core of rose,
It stirred the sweet Francesca's gentle heart
To take that kiss that brought her so much woe,
And sealed in fire her martyrdom of love.

And Dante, full of her immortal love,
Stayed his drear song, and softly, fondly sang
As though his voice broke with that weight of woe;
And to this day we think of Arnaut's rhyme,
Whenever pity at the laboring heart
On fair Francesca's memory drops the rose.

Ah! sovereign Love, forgive this weaker rhyme!
The men of old who sang were great at heart,
Yet have we too known woe, and worn thy rose.

(EDMUND GOSSE: _Sestina._)

For a specimen of the rimed sestina, see Swinburne's _Poems and Ballads_, Second Series, p. 46.

The Virelai, which we have seen was one of the forms used by Chaucer, though not represented in his extant poetry, has been but slightly imitated in English. It was a poem of indeterminate length, composed of longer and shorter lines, the longer lines in each stanza riming, the shorter lines in the same stanza also riming, while in the succeeding stanza the short-line rime of the previous stanza became the long-line rime. The last stanza took the unrepeated rime of the first stanza as its new rime; so that in the whole poem each rime was used in two stanzas. Charles Cotton, one of whose rondeaus has been quoted, also wrote a virelai. A modern specimen, by Mr. John Payne, is quoted in _Ballades and Rondeaus_, p. 276.

The Pantoum is another very interesting form belonging in this group rather than elsewhere, although it originated not in France but Malaysia. It was imitated in French by Victor Hugo and other poets, and through French influence has found a place in English verse. It consists of an indeterminate number of stanzas of four lines each, the second and fourth line of each stanza being repeated as the first and third of the succeeding stanza, while the second and fourth lines of the last stanza repeat the first and third lines of the first stanza. Thus the whole forms a sort of interwoven circle, and is used most appropriately to represent any kind of monotony,--the dull round of repetition. From _Love in Idleness_ (1883) Mr. White reprints the following admirable specimen:

_Monologue d'outre Tombe._

Morn and noon and night,
Here I lie in the ground;
No faintest glimmer of light,
No lightest whisper of sound.

Here I lie in the ground;
The worms glide out and in;
No lightest whisper of sound,
After a lifelong din.

The worms glide out and in;
They are fruitful and multiply;
After a lifelong din
I watch them quietly.

They are fruitful and multiply,
My body dwindles the while;
I watch them quietly;
I can scarce forbear a smile.

My body dwindles the while,
I shall soon be a skeleton;
I can scarce forbear a smile,
They have had such glorious fun.

I shall soon be a skeleton,
The worms are wriggling away;
They have had such glorious fun,
They will fertilize my clay.

The worms are wriggling away,
They are what I have been;
They will fertilize my clay;
The grass will grow more green.

They are what I have been.
I shall change, but what of that?
The grass will grow more green,
The parson's sheep grow fat.

I shall change, but what of that?
All flesh is grass, one says.
The parson's sheep grow fat,
The parson grows in grace.

All flesh is grass, one says;
Grass becomes flesh, one knows;
The parson grows in grace:
I am the grace he grows.

Grass becomes flesh, one knows.
He grows like a bull of Bashan.
I am the grace he grows;
I startle his congregation.

He grows like a bull of Bashan,
One day he'll be Bishop or Dean.
I startle his congregation;
One day I shall preach to the Queen.

One day he'll be Bishop or Dean,
One of those science-haters;
One day I shall preach to the Queen.
To think of my going in gaiters!

One of those science-haters,
Blind as a mole or bat;
To think of my going in gaiters,
And wearing a shovel hat!

Blind as a mole or bat,
No faintest glimmer of light,
And wearing a shovel hat,
Morning and noon and night.

FOOTNOTES:

[47] On the early history of these forms in France, see Stengel's article in Gröber's _Grundriss der Romanischen Philologie_. vol. ii. pp. 87-96.

[48] On these ballades of Graunson, a "knight of Savoy," see the articles by A. Piaget, in _Romania_, vol. xix., and Lounsbury's _Studies in Chaucer_, vol. iii. p. 450.