Bouts Rimés.
Bouts Rimés, or Rhyming Ends, afford considerable amusement. They are said by Goujet to have been invented by Dulot, a French poet, who had a custom of preparing the rhymes of sonnets, leaving them to be filled up at leisure. Having been robbed of his papers, he was regretting the loss of three hundred sonnets. His friends were astonished that he had written so many of which they had never heard. “They were blank sonnets,” said he, and then explained the mystery by describing his “Bouts Rimés.” The idea appeared ridiculously amusing, and it soon became a fashionable pastime to collect some of the most difficult rhymes, and fill up the lines. An example is appended:—
nettle,
pains.
mettle.
remains.
natures.
rebel.
graters.
well.
The rhymes may be thus completed:—
Tender-handed stroke a nettle,
And it stings you for your pains;
Grasp it like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains.
’Tis the same with common natures,
Use them kindly, they rebel;
But be rough as nutmeg-graters,
And the rogues obey you well.
A sprightly young belle, who was an admirer of poetry, would often tease her beau, who had made some acquaintance with the muses, to write verses for her. One day, becoming quite importunate, she would take no denial. “Come, pray, do now write some poetry for me—won’t you? I’ll help you out. I’ll furnish you with rhymes if you will make lines for them. Here now:—
| please, | moan, |
| tease, | bone.” |
He at length good-humoredly complied, and filled up the measure as follows:—
To a form that is faultless, a face that must—please,
Is added a restless desire to—tease;
O, how my hard fate I should ever be—moan,
Could I but believe she’d be bone of my—bone!
Mr. Bogart, a young man of Albany, who died in 1826, at the age of twenty-one, displayed astonishing facility in impromptu writing.
It was good-naturedly hinted on one occasion that his “impromptus” were prepared beforehand, and he was asked if he would submit to the application of a test of his poetic abilities. He promptly acceded, and a most difficult one was immediately proposed.
Among his intimate friends were Col. J. B. Van Schaick and Charles Fenno Hoffman, both of whom were present. Said Van Schaick, taking up a copy of Byron, “The name of Lydia Kane” (a lady distinguished for her beauty and cleverness, who died a few years ago, but who was then just blushing into womanhood) “has in it the same number of letters as a stanza of Childe Harold has lines: write them down in a column.” They were so written by Bogart, Hoffman, and himself. “Now,” he continued, “I will open the poem at random; and for the ends of the lines in Miss Lydia’s Acrostic shall be used the words ending those of the verse on which my finger may rest.” The stanza thus selected was this:—
And must they fall, the young, the proud, the brave,
To swell one bloated chief’s unwholesome reign?
No step between submission and a grave?
The rise of rapine and the fall of Spain?
And doth the Power that man adores ordain
Their doom, nor heed the suppliant’s appeal?
Is all that desperate valor acts in vain?
And counsel sage, and patriotic zeal,
The veteran’s skill, youth’s fire, and manhood’s heart of steel?
The following stanza was composed by Bogart within the succeeding ten minutes,—the period fixed in a wager,—finished before his companions had reached a fourth line, and read to them as here presented:[[6]]—
| L ovely and loved, o’er the unconquered | brave |
| Y our charms resistless, matchless girl, shall | reign! |
| D ear as the mother holds her infant’s | grave |
| I n Love’s own region, warm, romantic | Spain! |
| A nd should your fate to court your steps | ordain, |
| K ings would in vain to regal pomp | appeal, |
| A nd lordly bishops kneel to you in | vain, |
| N or valor’s fire, law’s power, nor churchman’s | zeal |
| E ndure ’gainst love’s (time’s up!) untarnished | steel. |
The French also amuse themselves with bouts rimés retournés, in which the rhymes are taken from some piece of poetry, but the order in which they occur is reversed. The following example is from the album of a Parisian lady of literary celebrity, the widow of one of the Crimean heroes. The original poem is by Alfred de Musset, the retournés by Marshal Pelissier, who improvised it at the lady’s request. In the translation which ensues, the reversed rhymes are carefully preserved.
BY DE MUSSET.
Quand la fugitive espérance
Nous pousse le coude en passant,
Puis à tire d’ailes s’élance
Et se retourne en souriant,
Où va l’homme? où son cœur l’appelle;
L’hirondelle suit le zéphir,
Et moins légère est l’hirondelle
Que l’homme qui suit son désir.
Ah! fugitive enchanteresse,
Sais-tu seulement ton chemin?
Faut-il donc que le vieux destin
Ait une si jeune maîtresse!
BY PELISSIER, DUC DE MALAKOFF.
Pour chanter la jeune maîtresse
Que Musset donne au vieux destin,
J’ai trop parcouru de chemin
Sans atteindre l’enchanteresse;
Toujours vers cet ancien désir
J’ai tendu comme l’hirondelle,
Mais sans le secours du zéphir
Qui la porte où son cœur l’appelle.
Adieu, fantôme souriant,
Vers qui la jeunesse s’élance,
La raison me crie en passant;
Le souvenir vaut l’espérance.