One might suggest Gentle Verse, but it would be with the restricted meaning of the adjective that is applied to the courteous and well-bred; the innately fine, polished by the experience and sophistication of truly good society.
Gentlefolk are never excessive. Their enthusiasms are modified, their emotions are restrained, their humor is delicate. As a result of wise and intelligent culture, their tastes are refined, their fashions correct. They breathe the air of polite worldly wisdom, which endows them with a gracious ease, and removes all trace of self-consciousness.
D’Israeli says, “Genius is not always sufficient to impart that grace of amenity which seems peculiar to those who are accustomed to elegant society.”
Gentle Verse then, would imply lines written of the gentlefolk, for the gentlefolk, and by gentlefolk.
Society Verse is an inadequate term, because Society has come to include both the gentle folk and the others.
Familiar Verse, though staunchly defended by one of our foremost men of letters, allows a latitude of informality that is too liberal for a precise equivalent. Occasional Verse is ambiguous, and Easy Verse, absurd.
Lyra Elegantiarum is an adequate translation, but not into English. And none of the graceful titles yet chosen by our modern poets from “Brightsome Balladry” to “Lingerie de Poesie” has as yet fulfilled all requirements.
Granting then that there is no perfect English translation of the French phrase, and accepting Vers de Société as our field, we are again confronted by great difficulties and embarrassments in defining its boundaries.