“READY FOR THE RIDE”
H. C. Bunner
“Through the fresh fairness of the Spring to ride,
As in the old days when he rode with her,
With joy of Love that had fond Hope to bride
One year ago had made her pulses stir.
“Now shall no wish with any day recur
(For Love and Death part year and year full wide),
Through the fresh fairness of the Spring to ride,
As in the old days when he rode with her.
“No ghost there lingers of the smile that died
On the sweet pale lip where his kisses were
... Yet still she turns her delicate head aside,
If she may hear him come with jingling spur
Through the fresh fairness of the Spring to ride,
As in the old days when he rode with her.”
This variant of the rondeau contains fourteen lines of which the first two are twice repeated as refrains. But two rhymes are employed.
The Villanelle
“A VILLANELLE AT VERONA”
Austin Dobson,
In the Century Magazine
“A voice in the scented night,
A step where the rose trees blow,—
O Love and O Love’s delight!
“Cold star at the blue vault’s height,
What is it that shakes you so?
A voice in the scented night.
“She comes in her beauty bright,
She comes in her young love’s glow,
O Love and O Love’s delight!
“She bends from her casement white,
And she hears it hushed and low,
A voice in the scented night.
“And he climbs by that stairway slight
Her passionate Romeo:
O Love and O Love’s delight!
“And it stirs us still in spite
Of its ‘ever so long ago,’
That voice in the scented night;
O Love and O Love’s delight!”
The second lines of each stanza rhyme and the first and third lines of the first stanza are alternated as refrains.