Ballades, Rondeaus and Villanelles.
The revival of the taste for these curious old French forms of poetry has received a great impetus from the delightful examples produced by Austin Dobson, Edmund Gosse, W. E. Henley, Andrew Lang, R. Le Gallienne, J. Ashby-Sterry, A. C. Swinburne, C. H. Waring and Oscar Wilde.
The composition of all poetry in the English language is governed by clearly defined rules, and although a man ignorant of these rules, if gifted with a fine ear, and original conceptions, may produce a pretty song or ballad, it is very rare indeed that any truly great work is composed, which is not written in accordance with certain regulations as to metre and rhyme.
In ordinary poetry these restrictions allow of great variations in style and treatment, but it is far otherwise when any of the old French poetical fashions are selected; then the rules are exact and peremptory, and for each of the following varieties, the form is clearly defined, and perfectly distinct. They are the Ballade, Chant Royal, Kyrielle, Pantoum, Rondeau Redoublé, Rondel, Rondeau, Sicilian Octave, Triolet, and Villanelle, with a few minor forms.
It is quite beyond the scope of this collection to formulate the rules governing the composition of these poetic trifles, nor indeed is it necessary, for Mr. Gleeson White’s charming little book on the subject is readily accessible, and contains nearly all that can be said about it. It is entitled Ballades and Rondeaus, selected, with a chapter on the various forms, by Gleeson White. London, Walter Scott, 1887.
The editor’s name is sufficient to indicate that the selections are the best that could be chosen, and the introductory essay is, in itself, a distinct gain to our literature, treating as it does, of a somewhat exotic branch of poetry. Mr. Gleeson White is very much in earnest, and although he inserts a few burlesques it is evident that he regards them as desecrations of his favourite metres.
To the Parodist nothing is sacred, but whilst some of the following parodies are quoted from Mr. White’s collection, those who would wish to read the originals must refer to the work itself.
In Punch (October 22, 1887) there was a set of verses (in honour of Mr. White’s book) written in the various metres described, and one of each of these may fitly lead the several varieties here dealt with.
THE MUSE IN MANACLES.
(By an Envious and Irritable Bard, after reading “Ballades and Rondeaus,” just published, and wishing he could do anything like any of them.)
Bored by the Ballade, vexed by Villanelle,
Of Rondeau tired, and Triolet as well!
The Ballade.
(In Bad Weather).
Oh! I’m in a terrible plight—
For how can I rhyme in the rain?
’Tis pouring from morn until night:
So bad is the weather again,
My language is almost profane!
Though shod with the useful galosh,
I’m racked with rheumatical pain—
I think that a Ballade is bosh
I know I am looking a fright;
That knowledge, I know, is in vain;
My “brolly” is not water-tight,
But hopelessly rended in twain
And spoilt by the rude hurricane!
Though clad in a stout mackintosh,
My temper I scarce can restrain—
I think that a Ballade is bosh!
Oh, I’m an unfortunate wight!
The damp is affecting my brain;
My woes I would gladly recite,
In phrases emphatic and plain,
Your sympathy could I obtain.
I don’t think my verses will wash,
They’re somewhat effete and inane—
I think that a Ballade is bosh!
Envoy.
I fancy I’m getting insane,
I’m over my ankles in slosh;
But let me repeat the refrain—
I think that a Ballade is bosh!
A Ballade of Old Metres.
When, in the merry realm of France,
Bluff Francis ruled and loved and laughed,
Now held the lists with knightly lance,
Anon the knightly beaker quaffed;
Where wit could wing his keenest shaft
With Villon’s verse or Montaigne’s prose,
Then poets exercised their craft
In ballades, triolets, rondeaux.
O quaint old times! O fitting chants!
With fluttering banners fore and aft,
With mirth of minstrelsy and dance,
Sped Poesy’s enchanted craft;
The odorous gale was blowing abaft
Her silken sails, as on she goes,
Doth still to us faint echoes waft
Of ballades, triolets, rondeaux.
But tell me with what countenance
Ye seek on modern rhymes to graft
Those tender shoots of old Romance—
Romance that now is only chaffed?
O iron days! O idle raft
Of rhymesters! they are ‘peu de chose,’
What Scott would call supremely “saft”
Your ballades, triolets, rondeaux.
Envoy.
Bards, in whose vein the maddening draught
Of Hippocrene so wildly glows,
Forbear, and do not drive us daft
With ballades, triolets, rondeaux.
The Century.
A Young Poet’s Advice.
You should study the bards of to-day
Who in England are now all the rage;
You should try to be piquant and gay;
Your lines are too solemn and sage.
You should try to fill only a page,
Or two at the most with your lay;
And revive the quaint verse of an age
That is fading forgotten away.
Study Lang, Gosse, and Dobson, I pray—
That their rhymes and their fancies engage
Your thought to be witty as they.
You must stand on the popular stage.
In the bars of an old fashioned cage
We must prison the birds of our May,
To carol the notes of an age
That is fading forgotten away.
Now this is a ‘Ballade’—I say,
So one stanza more to our page,
But the “Vers de Société,”
If you can are the best for your ‘wage.’
Though the purists may fall in a rage
That two rhymes go thrice in one lay,
You may passably echo an age
That is fading forgotten away.
Envoy.
Bard—heed not the seer and the sage,
‘Afflatus’ and Nature don’t pay;
But stick to the forms of an age
That is fading forgotten away.
C. P. Cranch.
——:o:——
In an amusing little collection of poems quite recently published, there are several parodies and three ballades, all on legal topics, from which the following extracts are quoted by the kind permission of Messrs. Reeves and Turner. The title of the book is The Lays of a Limb of the Law, by the late John Popplestone, Town Clerk of Stourmouth, edited by Edmund B. V. Christian. London: Reeves and Turner, 1889. It contains Law Reports in the shape of parodies of Cowper’s “Alexander Selkirk;” of Pope’s translation of Homer, “The Splendid Shilling,” and of other poems in a manner somewhat similar to those contained in Professor Frederick Pollock’s well-known, but scarce little work, “Leading Cases Done into English.”
Of the three ballades perhaps the following is the best:—
Ballade of Old Law Books.
“I am improving my legal knowledge, Master Copperfield, said Uriah. ‘I am going through Tidd’s Practice. Oh, what a writer Mr. Tidd is, Master Copperfield.’”
The law books are standing in dingy array,
They fill every shelf from ceiling to floor,
Old guides to a silent and grass-covered way
Which never a traveller now shall explore,
Save delvers for antiquarian lore,
Who painfully search where their treasures lie hid,
In pages that else had been closed evermore,
Forgotten for aye, like the wonderful Tidd!
Great Blackstone is put up aloft, far away
(The Whig, first edition, in calf, volumes four);
The Doctor and Student alike are at play;
And Perkins is now but a profitless bore.
Old Viner’s abridgment is over the door
’Mid dust-begrimed wines that fetch never a bid;
Even Fearne on Remainders we vainly deplore
Forgotten for aye, like the wonderful Tidd!
Oblivion has fallen on the frequent Ca. sa.,
And Cursitor Street is untrod as of yore;
We turn not the leaves of Les Termes de la Ley,
Or these ancient Reports, ah, many a score,
Of a dulness as deadly as dread hellibore,
Of their Latin and law we are joyfully rid.
Let them stand, as we peacefully slumber and snore,
Forgotten for aye, like the wonderful Tidd.
Envoy.
How quickly the summers and winters are o’er!
They linger not now as in childhood they did.
Soon we shall be treading yon shadowy shore,
Forgotten for aye like the wonderful Tidd!
The first verse of each of the other two ballades will suffice:—
Ballade of the Honest Lawyer.
The “noble savage” of long ago
Within a hundred tomes we find;
The foreigner acute we know,
And “general readers,” looks resigned;
The “law of nature,” left behind
By a simpler age, has ceased to be
Aught but examination grind;
“The honest lawyer,” where is he?
* * * * *
Ballade of Leading Cases.
When August crowns the legal year,
When clients leave an hour for play,
But—your examination near—
You’re doomed in London town to stay;
When, tired of our prosaic day,
You’d catch a glimpse of old-world faces,
Put statutes, text-books, all, away—
Read, mark, and learn the Leading Cases.
* * * * *
Ballade of the Timid Bard.
(To Angelica, who bids him publish.)
In Memory’s mystical hazes
I see a vast Gander and grey,
I see the small boy that he chases
At the head of a hissing array:
How I wept when they brought me to bay,
How I pleaded in vain for a truce!
Too frightened too shoo them away,
I could never say Boh to a Goose!
* * * * *
Punch, October 22, 1887.
——:o:——
THE VILLANELLE.
(With Vexation.)
I do not like the Villanelle,
I think it somewhat of a bore—
This tinkle of a Muffin-bell!
The reason why I cannot tell;
Each day I fancy, more and more,
I do not like the Villanelle!
It makes me stamp and storm and yell,
It makes me wildly rage and roar:
This tinkle of a Muffin-bell!
I look upon it as a sell,
Its use I constantly deplore;
I do not like the Villanelle!
Poetic thoughts it must dispel,
It very often tries me sore:
This tinkle of a Muffin-bell!
For this I know, and know full well—
Let me repeat it o’er and o’er—
I do not like the Villanelle,
This tinkle of a Muffin-bell!
Such was Mr. Punch’s opinion of this delicious form of verse, which must be complete in nineteen lines, arranged as above. The accepted model is the following old French Villanelle by Jean Passerat:
J’ay perdu ma tourterelle;
Est-ce-point ells que i’oy?[2]
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’appelle
Prens ce qui se donne à toy:
J’ai perdu ma tourterelle,
Je veux aller après elle.
Of modern English specimens one of the most beautiful is that by Mr. Austin Dobson “When I saw you last, Rose,” which is given in Mr. White’s book, together with a French translation of it by M. J. Boulmier.
A Villanelle.
After Mr. Oscar Wilde.)
Commissioner of Lunacee!
An inquirendo come and hold;
For Oscar Wilde hath need of thee!
Flings to the world in wild frenzee
A poem on “a wattled fold,”
Commissioner of Lunacee.
In his strange verse none sense can see;
He raves of “limbs and beards of gold”;
He really hath great need of thee!
Anon he says, “A hell I see!”
And talks of satyrs dead and cold:
Commissioner of Lunacee.
And many an untold idiocee,
With little meaning, is enrolled:
He verily hath need of thee,
A Bedlamite as mad as he
No open doors should ever hold.
Commissioner of Lunacee,
You see he has great need of thee!
Frank Danby.
The Whitehall Review, September 30, 1880.
The Street Singer.
(Villanelle from my window.)
He stands at the kerb and sings.
’Tis a doleful tune and slow,
Ah me, if I had but wings!
He bends to the coin one flings,
But he never attempts to go,—
He stands at the kerb and sings.
The conjurer comes with his rings.
And the Punch-and-Judy show.
Ah me, if I had but wings!
They pass like all fugitive things—
They fade and they pass, but lo!
He stands at the kerb and sings.
All the magic that Music brings
Is lost when he mangles it so—
Ah me, if I had but wings!
But the worst is a thought that stings!
There is nothing at hand to throw!
He stands at the kerb and sings—
Ah me, if I had but wings!
Austin Dobson.
Culture in the Slums.
Now ain’t they utterly too-too
(She ses, my missus mine,[3] ses she),
Them flymy little bits of Blue.
Joe, just you kool ’em—nice and skew
Upon our old meogginee,
Now ain’t they utterly too-too?
They’re better than a pot ’n’ a screw,
They’re equal to a Sunday spree,
Them flymy little bits of Blue!
Suppose I put ’em up the flue,
And booze the profits, Joe? Not me.
Now ain’t they utterly too-too?
I do the ’Igh Art fake, I do.
Joe, I’m consummate; and I see
Them flymy little bits of Blue.
Which, Joe, is why I ses te you—
Æsthetic-like, and limp, and free—
Now ain’t they utterly too-too,
Them flymy little bits o’ Blue?
W. E. Henley.
In Wain!
(A Villanelle of Vexations. By B * * * y P * * g.)
Addressed to all true Jingoes.
In wain would I the British Lion wake!
In wain I’d rouge the brute to wilent springing;
His tail won’t wag, his mane declines to shake.
In wain my daily ’larum-bell I take,
Till his ears tingle with its brazen ringing
In wain would I the British Lion wake!
In wain I warn him of that Northern snake,
Who midst our Injun grass will soon be stinging;
His tail won’t wag, his mane declines to shake.
* * * * *
He sleeps as placid as a windless lake;
Cold water on my fire his calm is flinging.
His tail won’t wag, his mane declines to shake;
In wain would I the British Lion wake!
Punch. August 11, 1877.
——:o:——
THE TRIOLET.
(In a Temper.)
A Triolet’s scarcely the thing—
Unless you would carol in fetters!
If lark-like you freely would sing,
A Triolet’s scarcely the thing:
I miss the poetical ring,
I’m told that it has, by my betters!
A Triolet’s scarcely the thing—
Unless you would carol in fetters!
Punch.
The Triolet, which should consist of eight lines, but only two rhymes, is more often met with in French literature than in our own; the following old specimen was christened by Ménage le roi des 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.
Jacques Ranchin.
A Triolet,
(After Mr. Dobson’s “I intended an Ode”)
I wished to sing my love;
I cannot do so now.
(As I remarked above)
I wished to sing my love,
But Kate crossed with her cow
And gave my love a shove.
I wished to sing my love;
I cannot do so now.
John Twig.
How to Fashion a Triolet.
As triolets are now the “go,”
A charming one I’ll write,
Their little niceties to show,—
As triolets are now the “go,”—
I’m writing one (and à propos,
By Webster, I am right);
As triolets are now the “go,”
A charming one I’ll write.
The dictionary teaches me
The triolet receipt:—
The verses of eight lines must be;
The dictionary teaches me
The first line, by the recipe,
Three times I must repeat.
The dictionary teaches me
The triolet receipt.
The second line must reappear
To form the final line;
No matter if it soundeth queer.
The second line must reappear;
When poetry is far from clear
It is considered fine!
The second line must reappear
To form the final line.
Now, do you like the triolet?
Your true opinion say.
It puts me in a horrid pet;
Now, do you like the triolet?
I wish your real thought to get,
So do be candid, pray.
Now do you like the triolet?
Your true opinion say.
W. Best.
Detroit Free Press, 1888.
——:o:——
THE RONDEAU.
(In a Rage.)
Pray tell me why we can’t agree
To bid the merry Muse run free?
Pray tell me why we should incline
To see her in a Rondeau pine,
Or sigh in shackled minstrelsy?
Why can’t she sing with lark-like glee,
And revel in bright jeux d’esprit?
Where form can’t fetter or confine—
Pray tell me why?
Pray tell me why that frisky gee,
Called Pegasus, should harnessed be?
Why bit and bridle should combine
To all his liveliness consign,—
To deck the Rondeau’s narrow line—
Pray tell me why?
Punch.
RONDEAU.
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 eau, cinq en eme!
Je lui ferais aussitôt un bateau.
En voilà cing pourtant en un monceau.
Faisons-en huit en invoquant Brodeau,
Et puis mettons, par quelque stratagème:
Ma foi, c est fait.
Si je pouvais encor de mon cerveau
Tirer cinq vers l’ouvrage serait beau;
Mais cependant je suis dedans l’onzième;
Et ci je crois que je fais le douzième;
En voila treize ajustés au niveau.
Ma foi, c’est fait.
—Voiture.
The following humorous paraphrase was written, some years since, by Mr. Austin Dobson:—
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 Rondeau.
(After Voiture’s “Ma foy c’est fait.”)
Why do I wander wildly to and fro?
My tyrant bade me twist her a rondeau.
Methinks ’twas deleterious to my brain!
I loved her (though her name was Mary Jane):
She died of D. T. many years ago.
A Rondeau? Humph! Ha, hum! Egad, just so!
“Five rhymes in ain and eight remain in O.”
Eh, no, Voiture! For they be all inane.
Why do I wander?
White though the head be, red’s the nose below—
(Bright beams a light-house spite a roof of snow)—
“Why wander goose-like?” doth my love complain?
Ah, dear, dead love! Ah, Marie! Ah, ma reine!
(Meaning M. J. of course.) Hullo! Gee Wo!
Why do I wander?
Culture in the Slums.
(Inscribed to an Intense Poet.)
“O Crikey, Bill!” she ses to me, she ses.
“Look sharp,” ses she, “with them there sossiges.
Yea! sharp with them there bags of mysteree!
For lo!” she ses, “for lo! old pal,” ses she,
“I’m blooming peckish, neither more nor less.”
Was it not prime—I leave you all to guess
How prime!—to have a jude in love’s distress
Come spooning round, and murmuring balmilee,
“O crikey, Bill!”
For in such rorty wise doth Love express
His blooming views, and asks for your address,
And makes it right, and does the gay and free.
I kissed her—I did so! And her and me
Was pals. And if that ain’t good business,
O crikey, Bill!
W. E. Henley.
A Rondel.
(After Mr. Dobson’s “Too hard it is to sing.”)
Too hard it is to pipe
To an untuneful herd!
And berries, while unripe,
Repel the prudent bird!
The wildly warbling snipe
You may, perhaps, have heard—
(Too hard it is to pipe
To an untuneful herd!)
It rarely fed on tripe
But mushroom much preferred
Lest folk its tail should gripe
And salt (which were absurd!)
Too hard it is to pipe
To an untuneful herd!
Rondel.
(Adapted, for the use of the Order of Our Lady of Pain.)
Kissing the Heir, I saw him at my feet,
Wound round my finger, found him soft and sweet;
Made fast his feeble hands, dazzled his eyes,—
Like fishes’ optics, no ways clear or wise.
With my best dresses made him find me fair—
Kissing the Heir!
Deep the resources drained by him and me,
Deep as Disraeli, or the deeper sea.
What wife could draw him thus for her and her’s?
What charm have made him more for me disburse?—
Ah! if his guardian had not caught me there
Kissing the Heir!
The Hornet, July 26, 1871.
——:o:——
BEHOLD THE DEEDS!
(Chant Royal.)
An American Parody.
[Being the Plaint of Adolphe Culpepper Ferguson, Salesman of Fancy Notions, held in durance of his Landlady for a failure to connect on Saturday night.]
I.
I would that all men my hard case might know;
How grievously I suffer for no sin:
I, Adolphe Culpepper Ferguson, for lo!
I, of my landlady am locked in.
For being short on this sad Saturday,
Nor having shekels of silver wherewith to pay;
She has turned and is departed with my key;
Wherefore, not even as other boarders free,
I sing (as prisoners to their dungeon stones
When for ten days they expiate a spree):
Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!
II.
One night and one day have I wept my woe;
Nor wot I when the morrow doth begin,
If I shall have to write to Briggs & Co.,
To pray them to advance the requisite tin
For ransom of their salesman, that he may
Go forth as other boarders go alway——
As those I hear now flocking from their tea,
Led by the daughter of my landlady
Piano-ward. This day for all my moans,
Dry bread and water have been servéd me.
Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!
III.
Miss Amabel Jones is musical, and so
The heart of the young he-boardér doth win,
Playing “The Maiden’s Prayer,” adagio—
That fetcheth him, as fetcheth the banco skin
The innocent rustic. For my part, I pray:
That Badarjewska maid may wait for aye
Ere sits she with a lover, as did we
Once sit together, Amabel! Can it be
That all that arduous wooing not atones
For Saturday shortness of trade dollars three?
Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!
IV.
Yea! she forgets the arm was wont to go
Around her waist. She wears a buckle whose pin
Galleth the crook of the young man’s elbow;
I forget not, for I that youth have been.
Smith was aforetime the Lothario gay.
Yet once, I mind me, Smith was forced to stay
Close in his room. Not calm, as I, was he;
But his noise brought no pleasaunce, verily.
Small ease he gat of playing on the bones,
Or hammering on his stove-pipe, that I see.
Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!
V.
Thou, for whose fear the figurative crow
I eat, accursed be thou and all thy kin!
Thee will I show up—yea, up will I shew
Thy too thick buckwheats, and thy tea too thin.
Ay! here I dare thee, ready for the fray!
Thou dost not “keep a first-class house,” I say!
It does not with the advertisements agree.
Thou lodgest a Briton with a puggaree,
And thou hast harboured Jacobses and Cohns,
Also a Mulligan. Thus denounce I thee!
Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!
Envoy.
Boarders! the worst I have not told to ye:
She hath stolen my trousers, that I may not flee
Privily by the window. Hence these groans,
There is no fleeing in a robe de nuit.
Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!
H. C. Bunner.
——:o:——