NOËL.
(The Second of the Chansons.)
But here, upon the contrary, is the spontaneity of his happy mind; it suggests a song; one can hardly read it without a tune in one's head, so simple is it and so purely lyrical: there is a touch of the dance in it, too.
In these little things of Marot, which are neither learned (and he boasted of learning) nor set and dry (and his friends especially praised his precision), a great poet certainly appears--in short revelations, but still appears. Unfortunately there are not enough of them.
That he thought "like a Southerner," as I have maintained and as I shall show by a further example, is made the more probable from the value he lends to the feminine e. The excellent rhythm of this poem you will only get by giving the feminine e the value of a drawn out syllable:
"L'effect
Est faict:
La bel-le
Pucel-le," etc.
So Spaniards, Gascons, Provençaux, Italians, rhyme, and all those of the south who have retained their glorious "a's" and "o's".
As for the spirit of it--God bless him!--it is a subject for perpetual merriment to think of such a man's being taken for a true Huguenot and enmeshed, even for a while, in the nasty cobweb of Geneva. But in the last thing I shall quote, when he is Bacchic for the vine, you will see it still more.
NOËL.
Une pastourelle gentille
Et ung bergier en ung verger
L'autrhyer en jouant à la bille
S'entredisoient, pour abréger:
Roger
Bergier
Legière
Bergière,
C'est trop à la bille joué;
Chantons Noé, Noé, Noé.
Te souvient-il plus du prophète
Qui nous dit cas de si hault faict,
Que d'une pucelle parfaicte
Naistroit ung enfant tout parfaict?
L'effect
Est faict:
La belle
Pucelle
A eu ung filz du ciel voué:
Chantons Noé, Noé, Noé.