"Perchance she is kneeling in St. Denys
(On her soul may our Lady have grammercy!)
Ah, if she is praying in lone chapelle
I might swing the censer and ring the bell."
It is so easy to overdo the thing, to produce a bad counterfeit made up of Wardour Street English, that to retain the simplicity of language and the slight soupçon of Chaucerian English requires all the skill of a master craftsman, and the intimate knowledge of the value and date of words that can only result from a close acquaintance with the works of the ballad writers.
In "The Dole of the King's Daughter" Wilde again essays the ballad form, but this time the treatment shows more traces of the Rossetti influence. The ballad spirit is maintained with unerring skill and the form perfectly adhered to throughout. To quote good old Izaak Walton—"old-fashioned poetry but choicely good."
As conveying the idea of impending tragedy nothing could be more effective than the simplicity of the lines
"There are two that ride from the south and east
And two from the north and west,
For the black raven a goodly feast
For the king's daughter rest."
In this ballad as in the "Chanson" he uses the old device, so common in ancient ballads, of making the alternate lines parenthetical, as, for instance—
"There is one man who loves her true,
(Red, O red, is the stain of gore!)
He hath duggen a grave by the darksome yew,
(One grave will do for four)."
A rather clever parody of this mode of construction is worth quoting here—
"SAGE GREEN"
(By a Fading-out Æsthete)