(Samuel Minturn Peck: Under the Rose.)
Worldly designs, fears, hopes, farewell!
Farewell all earthly joys and cares!
On nobler thoughts my soul shall dwell!
Worldly designs, fears, hopes, farewell!
At quiet, in my peaceful cell,
I'll think on God, free from your snares;
Worldly designs, fears, hopes, farewell!
Farewell all earthly joys and cares!
(Patrick Carey: in Trivial Poems and Triolets, 1651; reprinted by Scott, 1819; this triolet also quoted in Ballades and Rondeaus, Introduction, p. xxxvi.)
Originally, the triolet was often used for serious sentiment. The present and the following specimen are rare instances of its serious use in English.
In his arms thy silly lamb
Lo! he gathers to his breast!
See, thou sadly bleating dam,
See him lift thy silly lamb!
Hear it cry, "How blest I am!—
Here is love and love is rest."
In his arms thy silly lamb
See him gather to his breast!
(George Macdonald.)
E.—THE SESTINA
This form, although originally found in Provençal like the others of the group, has been more used in Italy than in France, and, as the English form of the word indicates, was introduced into England under Italian influence. It was invented at the end of the thirteenth century, by the troubadour Arnaut Daniel, celebrated in the following specimen. The common form of the sestina has six stanzas of six lines each, with a tercet at the end. There is usually no rime, but the stanzas are based on six end-words, which are the same in all stanzas; in the tercet three of these words are used in the middle of the lines, and three at the ends. The order of the end-words changes in each stanza according to a complex system: thus (in the common modern form) if the end-words of the first stanza be represented by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, the order in the second stanza will be 6, 1, 5, 2, 4, 3; in the third, 3, 6, 4, 1, 2, 5; in the fourth, 5, 3, 2, 6, 1, 4; in the fifth, 4, 5, 1, 3, 6, 2; in the sixth, 2, 4, 6, 5, 3, 1. Sometimes the end-words also rime by twos and threes.
In fair Provence, the land of lute and rose,
Arnaut, great master of the lore of love,
First wrought sestines to win his lady's heart;
For she was deaf when simpler staves he sang,
And for her sake he broke the bonds of rhyme,
And in this subtler measure hid his woe.
"Harsh be my lines," cried Arnaut, "harsh the woe,
My lady, that enthroned and cruel rose,
Inflicts on him that made her live in rhyme!"
But through the metre spake the voice of Love,
And like a wildwood nightingale he sang
Who thought in crabbed lays to ease his heart.