The Virelai nouveau is written throughout in two rhymes. Like the rondeau redoublé, its first stanza serves as refrain for the later ones, but its initial verse is but a couplet, and the two lines close each stanza alternately until the last, where they appear both together, but in inverse order. Unfortunately, space forbids an example being quoted in its complete length. The one usually chosen is "Le Rimeur Rebuté;" this commences with the couplet—
Adieu vous dy, triste Lyre,
C'est trop apprêter à rire.
Then follows a five-line stanza, rhyming a, a, b, a, a, with "Adieu vous dy," etc., for its last line; then an eight-lined one rhymed a, b, a, a, b, a, b, a, the last line being "C'est trop," etc.; that is followed by a four-line one closing with first line; then a sixteen-line one, using the second line for its refrain; then a seventeen-line one, with first line ending it; and finally a five-line stanza, its last lines being—
C'est trop apprêter à rire,
Adieu vous dy, triste lyre.
If this description conveys its intended meaning, it will be seen that the verses are singularly irregular in form, and choose both the order of the rhymes and the length of the verses exactly at the will of the poet; but each paragraph must not only use its proper refrain to close with, but must bring it in naturally and easily as an inherent part of the verse. The last two lines in the inverted order must also be worked in with equal skill. Excepting one by Mr. Austin Dobson, that appeared in Evening Hours about 1878, this form has been unused, or at least unpublished, in English verse.
The poems in the following collections have been chosen for several reasons—some for their intrinsic excellence, some as examples of pure form, some for their bold attempts to produce variations from the typical models. There has been no limit to the subjects, since the purpose was to give a representative group of the rhythms, treated in the most diverse ways. Even burlesque and diatribe of the use of the forms, masquerading in guise of the enemy they professed to attack, have been welcomed, as the points of the construction of the verse are often seen more clearly in such examples. For similar reasons the parody of the pioneer Ballade, Mr. Austin Dobson's Prodigals, is quoted, since the doubtful honour of parody is at least a proof of wide popularity, the only others marked in this way being Mr. Swinburne's 'Dreamland' and Mr. Lang's 'Primitive Man.' Here, too, in default of a better place, it may be noted that Mr. Henley's 'Villonism' is not an imitation of the incomprehensible ballades in 'Jargon' or 'Jobelin,' but a paraphrase in thieves' patter of to-day of Villon's Ballade of Good Counsel.
It may be that such a medley of themes handled in so many different ways, was never of set purpose grouped side by side before, but is to be hoped that a method in the madness will be found. While conscious of a few noteworthy examples, Rossetti's Translations from Villon to wit, being not included for reasons beyond my control, so it may be that one or two here inserted would have been replaced by later comers, had they not gone to the printer's eternity of stereotype. Started as a collection, but turned perforce to a selection, from the increasing number available, they yet do not aim so much at being a selection of the best work solely, as of the best and least-accessible examples. This explanation of the progress and purpose of the volume is offered in common fairness both to its readers and to those authors who have permitted their works to be included, also to those who by oversight or too late discovery on my part have no examples of their poetry included herein.