LATER FRENCH LYRICS.
During the latter half of the thirteenth century several new and highly artificial forms of verse were developed. The chief of these were the Ballade and Chant Royal, the Rondel, Roudeau, Triolet, Virelay. These are all alike in being short poems, generally treating of love, and making special use of a refrain and the repetition of words and lines. They differ in the number of verses in a stanza, of stanzas In the poem, and the order and number of rhymes. Their poetic value is not great because the poet so easily lost sight of his subject in perfecting his verse form.
A TRIOLET.
Take time while yet it is in view,
For fortune is a fickle fair:
Days fade, and others spring anew;
Then take the moment still in view.
What boots to toil and cares pursue?
Each month a new moon hangs in air.
Take, then, the moment still in view,
For fortune is a fickle fair.
—Froissart. Tr. Anonymous.