Part 2

WILDE, OSCAR 'Theocritus' _Poems_ 275

VIRELAI.

PAYNE, JOHN 'Spring's sadness' _New Poems_ 276

VIRELAI NOUVEAU.

DOBSON, AUSTIN 'July' _Evening Hours_ 279

BURLESQUES, ETC.

Anonymous 'Ballade of Old _The Century_ 285 Metres'

" 'Ballade of the " 287 Prodigals'

_Bunner, H. C._ 'On Newport Beach' " 290 (Rondeau)

" 'Ballade of Summer " 283 Boarder'

" Chant Royal, 'Mrs. " 294 Jones'

_Cranch, C. P._ 'Young Poet's Advice' _New York Critic_ 284

DOBSON, AUSTIN Villanelle _Walnuts and Wine_ 293

G. H. 'Malapropos' _The Lute_ 294

HENLEY, W. E. 'Villon's Straight 288 Tip'*

" 'Culture in the 290 Slums'

LANG, ANDREW 'Ballade of Cricket' _Rhymes a la mode_ 286

MOORE, A. M. 'Ballade of _Hood's Annual_ 289 Ballade-mongers'

PREFACE.

* * * * *

This anthology is chosen entirely from poems written in the traditional fixed forms of the _ballade_, _chant royal_, _kyrielle_, _rondel_, _rondeau_, _rondeau redoublé_, _sestina_, _triolet_, _villanelle_, and _virelai_, with the addition of the _pantoum_. That such a choice is the result of circumstances it is needless to point out, since only those that had found favour with English writers were available for the purpose. So far as I know, this collection is the first of its sort, although Mr. W. Davenport Adams' _Latter Day Lyrics_ included a section chosen on the same lines. Having, in company, no doubt, with many others, a genuine regard for the group Mr. Adams included there, I had long hoped to see a more ample compilation of later work in this school; but notwithstanding the steady increase in the number of poems written in the forms systematically arranged herein, the ground remained unoccupied, until the appearance of this book; which may fairly claim to be the first in the field, since no other volume has devoted its whole space to them, save in the rarer cases, where an author has published a collection of original poems cast in one mould, notably Mr. Swinburne's _Century of Roundels_ and Mr. Andrew Lang's _Ballades in Blue China_.

In Mr. Adams' volume another valuable feature was the _Note on some Foreign forms of Verse_ by Mr. Austin Dobson, which many years since introduced to me the laws of the various forms and created my special interest in them. It is no derogation to the charming group in the former volume to say of the present collection, that it far exceeds its predecessor in number and variety, for now there is a wide field to choose from, whereas Mr. Adams was then limited to a selection from the small number extant.

The rules which Mr. Austin Dobson was the first to formulate in English are made the basis (side by side with the treatises of M. de Gramont, M. de Banville, and other authorities) of the following chapter on the rules of the various forms. Lest a name so intimately associated with the introduction of the old French metrical shapes in English poetry should appear to be brought in to add weight to my own attempt, and the reputation of a master invoked for the work of one who at furthest can but style himself an apprentice, I must ask that this necessary tribute to Mr. Dobson's labours be taken only as an apology for so freely using his material, and that his ready help is by no means to be regarded in the faintest way as an imprimatur of any statements in this prefatory matter, save those quoted avowedly and directly from his writings.

It may be best to name at once the authorities who have been consulted in the preparation of the introductory chapter. These include the French treatises of De Banville, De Gramont, and Jullienne, Mr. Saintsbury's _Short History of French Literature_, Mr. Hueffers' _Troubadours_, an article by Mr. Gosse in the _Cornhill Magazine_, July 1877, _Les Villanelles_ by M. Joseph Boulmier, _The Rhymester_ of Mr. Brander Matthews, and many occasional papers on the various forms that have appeared in English and American periodicals. To arrange in one chapter the materials gathered from these and other sources is all that I have attempted. If at times the need to crowd enough matter for a volume into the limits of a few pages results in a want of lucidity, I must plead the necessity imposed by limited space. To those who, by their kindly permission, have allowed their poems to be quoted here, the thanks that I can offer are as hearty as the expression of my gratitude is brief. The somewhat onerous task of obtaining consent from about two hundred authors has been turned to a pleasure, by the evidence of interest taken in this, the first collection of the later growth of this branch of poetic art. Nor did the help cease with the loan of the poems; in many instances a correspondence followed that brought to light fresh material, both for the body of the book and the introductory chapter, and rendered assistance not easy to overvalue. If any writer is quoted without direct permission, it was through no want of effort to trace him, excepting in the case of a very few that reached me in the shape of newspaper cuttings, wholly devoid of any clue to the locality of the writer. To Mr. Austin Dobson my best thanks are due. From Mr. Andrew Lang and Mr. Edmund Gosse I have also appropriated material, acknowledged as often as practicable; also to my friend, Mr. A. G. Wright, for invaluable help during the rather monotonous task of hunting up and copying at the reading-room of the British Museum; and to Mr. William Sharp, whose critical advice and generous encouragement throughout have left a debt of gratitude beyond payment.

In a society paper, _The London_, a brilliant series of these poems appeared during 1877-8. After a selection was made for this volume, it was discovered that they were all by _one_ author, Mr. W. E. Henley, who most generously permitted the whole of those chosen to appear, and to be for the first time publicly attributed to him. The poems themselves need no apology, but in the face of so many from his pen, it is only right to explain the reason for the inclusion of so large a number.

From America Mr. Brander Matthews and Mr. Clinton Scollard have shown sympathy with the collection, not only by permitting their works to be cited, but also by calling my attention to poems by authors almost unknown in England; while all those writers who in the new world are using the old shapes with a peculiar freshness and vigour, gave ready assent to the demand.

To Messrs. Cassell & Co., for allowing poems that appeared in _Cassell's Family Magazine_ (those by Miss Ada Louise Martin and Mr. G. Weatherley); to Messrs. Longman, for liberty to quote freely from the many graceful examples that appeared in _Longman's Magazine_; to Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co., for endorsing Mr. Andrew Lang's permission to include specimens from _Rhymes à la Mode_ and _Ballades in Blue China_, the utmost thanks are due for the courtesy shown; also to the proprietors of the _Century Magazine_, where so many of the American poems (many since collected by the authors in their own volumes) first appeared; and to Messrs Harper for permission to use Mr. Coleman's _Sestina_, and Mr. Graham R. Tomson's _Ballade of the Bourne_, which first appeared in their popular monthly. The poems that are cited by the courtesy of Mr. John Payne appear respectively in _Songs of Life and Death_ (W. H. Allen & Co.), _New Poems_ (ditto), and _Poems by François Villon_ (Reeves & Turner), now out of print.

Having named so many who have lent aid, it is but fair to exonerate them from any blame for errors that, no doubt, in spite of the utmost care, may have crept in. In view of a later edition, I should be glad to be informed of any additional data of the use of the forms in English verse, which, if quoted, would add to the value of the collection, or to have any erroneous statements corrected.

Notwithstanding the many shortcomings of my own share in the production of this volume, I cannot doubt but that the charm of the poems themselves will endear it to readers; and as a lover of the "Gallic bonds," I venture to hope it may do some little towards their complete naturalisation in our tongue.

GLEESON WHITE.

_August 1887._

NOTES

ON THE EARLY USE OF THE

VARIOUS FORMS.

SOME NOTES ON THE EARLY USE OF THE VARIOUS FORMS, AND RULES FOR THEIR CONSTRUCTION.

In the limited space available, it is hardly possible to give more than a very crude sketch of the origin of these forms; but some reference to early Provençal literature is inevitable, since the nucleus of not a few of them can be traced among the intricate rhyming of the Troubadours. Yet it would be beyond the purpose to go minutely into the enticing history of that remarkable period, nor is it needful to raise disputed questions regarding the origin of each particular fashion. The number of books on Provençal subjects is great, the mere enumeration of the names of those in the library of the British Museum would fill several pages. The language itself has a fascination which allures many to disaster, for as Mr. Hueffer points out, it "looks at first sight so like the Latin and more familiar Romance languages that it offers special temptations" to guess at its meaning, with very doubtful success.

The term Provençal is usually applied to a dialect more correctly known as "the Langue d'Oc, which, with the Langue d'Oil, forms the two divisions of the Romance language spoken in the country we now know as France;" but Mr. Saintsbury remarks that, strictly speaking, the Langue d'Oc should not be called "French" at all, since it is hardly more akin to the Langue d'Oil than it is to Spanish and Italian, and that those who spoke it applied the term "French" to northern speech, calling their own Limousin, or Provençal, or Auvergnat. The limits where it prevailed extended far beyond Provence itself. Authorities differ with regard to the exact boundaries. It will suffice for the present purpose to take those Mr. Hueffer adopts--namely, the district within a boundary formed by a line drawn from the mouth of the Gironde to that of the Saone, in the north, while the southern limit includes parts of Spain, such as Aragon, Valencia, Catalonia, and the Balearic Islands.

Herr Karl Bartsch, the eminent historian of Provençal literature, divides it into three periods:--the first, to the end of the eleventh century; the second, which is the one that marks the most flourishing time of the poetry of the Troubadours, extending over the twelfth and thirteenth; and the third period--of its decadence--in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. To this may be added the attempt to revive it in our own day, by the school of the so-called _Félibres_, including Mistral, Aubanel, Alphonse Daudet, and others, who have worked vigorously, and with no mean success, to produce a modern literature in the old dialect, worthy of its former dignity. In this preface it is impossible to mention any part of the prose of this marvellous literature, which sprang almost suddenly into a gigantic growth, that has been a fruitful theme for wonder and admiration ever since, and left its influence widely felt. The point that is to the purpose here, concerns the invention by the Provençal poets of many set forms of verse, some few of which are still written, but most so altered and renewed by later use, that their original character is well-nigh obscured. The forms included in this book are often erroneously attributed _en masse_ to the _jongleurs_ of Provence, yet few assumptions are less true. Altered by the Trouvères, the fifteenth century poets, the Ronsardists, and later writers, it is safer to assign to the Troubadours only the germs which evolved gradually into their now matured forms. To linger over the extraordinary period is a temptation hard to dismiss; the very name still has a flavour of romance, and brings a curious medley of images to the mind when it is heard, many perhaps as far from the actual Provençal Troubadour as _Nanki-Poo_ in the "_Mikado_" is from the wandering minstrel of the court of King Thibaut. Of the Troubadours who have come down to fame, four hundred and sixty are recorded by name, besides two hundred and fifty-one pieces that have survived without evidence of their authors. King Richard I. (our own Coeur de Lion), Guillem de Cabestanh, Peire Vidal, Bertran de Born, The Monk of Montaudon, and many others, have biographical sketches of exceeding interest allotted to them in Mr. Hueffer's "The Troubadours." A halo of romance has gathered round their names, and thrown a glamour over the record of their lives; to read their history is to be transported to a region where all topics but love and song are deemed unimportant trifles, unless the old chroniclers are singularly untruthful in their statements. We know now-a-days many a young poet's crushed life appears only in his verses, and outside those he appears but an average Philistine to vulgar eyes. Perhaps the "land of the nightingale and rose" was not so idyllic as its historians paint it; but with every deduction, there yet remains evidence of an exceptional importance attached to the arts, more especially to that of song. To those who wrote, or rather sang, witty impromptus (made often, we can but fancy, with much labour beforehand), or produced dainty conceits in elaborate rhymes and rhythms, when sound came perilously near triumphing over sense, a welcome was extended, as widespread and far more personal in its application than even that accorded to our modern substitute for the troubadour--the popular novelist. The doings of the Courts of Love, set down in sober chronicles, are hardly less fantastic than Mr. Gilbert's ingenious operas. Matters of the most sentimental and amorous character were debated in public, with all the earnestness of a question of state. That their poetry was singularly limited in its character there is little doubt, but Mr. Hueffer declares that it had its serious side, often lost sight of, and that no small portion was devoted to stately and dignified subjects. Mr. Lowell, on the other hand, in an essay on Chaucer in _My Study Windows_, says--

"Their poetry is purely lyric in its most narrow sense, that is, the expression of personal and momentary moods. To the fancy of the critics who take their cue from tradition, Provence is a morning sky of early summer, out of which innumerable larks rain a faint melody (the sweeter because rather half divined than heard too distinctly) over an earth where the dew never dries and the flowers never fade. But when we open Raynouard it is like opening the door of an aviary. We are deafened and confused by a hundred minstrels singing the same song at once, and more than suspect the flowers they welcome are made of French cambric, spangled with dewdrops of prevaricating glass."

The forms in which the Provençal poets wrote were chiefly these:--The oldest was called _vers_, and consisted of octosyllabic lines arranged in stanzas; from this grew the _canzo_, with interlaced rhymes--later on with the distinctive feature still prominent in French, but unknown in English poetry, the rhymes _masculine_ and _feminine_. The _canzo_ was used entirely for subjects of love and gallantry, but the _sirvente_, composed of short stanzas, simply rhyming, and corresponding one to the other, was employed for political and social subjects, sometimes treated seriously, at others satirically. The _tenso_ was a curious trial of skill in impromptu versification. Two antagonists met and agreed that the one should reply on the opposite side to any argument the first might select. The opening stanza, chosen at will by the speaker, was imitated in the reply, both in observance of its rhyme and rhythm, the same rhyme-sound being often kept throughout the whole poem. It must not be forgotten that the Langue d'Oc was singularly fertile in rhymes, so that the feat was less arduous than it would be in other tongues. The _alba_, a farewell at morning, and the _serena_, or evening song, the _pastorella_, devoted, as its name implies, to pastoral subjects, appear to govern the themes of the verses rather than the form. There is record, however, of the _breu-doble_ (double short), invented by Guirant Riquier, a little form with three rhymes, two of which are repeated twice in three four-lined stanzas, and given once in a concluding couplet, while the third finished each quatrain. The _retroensa_ is noticeable for its refrain of more than one line. The sonnet has ceased to be claimed as a Provençal invention, yet it must be noted, as at one time its origin there was a favourite theory. The _ballade_, "a song serving to accompany the dance," must not be confused with the later ballade; and lastly, the greatest in most respects, the _sestina_, which, as it occurs among the poems noticed technically later on, need not be further mentioned here.

"The artificial verse-forms of Provence include some as peculiar and arbitrary as ever issued from the brain of Persian poet--verse-forms by the side of which the metrical glitter of _ballade_, _chant royal_, _rondeau_, _rondel_, _triolet_, _virelai_ and _villanelle_ must pale," says a writer in the _Westminster Review_ (October 1878), and instances the _tenso_ and the _sestina_ in proof of his assertion. Mr. Hueffer also treats the _chant royal_ as mere child's play beside the intricate feats displayed by the Troubadours. The above short list shows many examples of forms using the refrain and some other features preserved in Northern poetry; but the debt owed by the North to the Troubadours is far less, according to later writers, than that assigned to Provençal influence some few years ago. Mr. Saintsbury says that "poems called _rondeaux_ and _ballades_, of loose construction and undecided form, began to make their appearance at the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth century," but the forms as we know them owe their present shape to their reformation in Northern France, culminating in the poems of Charles d'Orléans and François Villon. In this revival, the _lai_ and _pastourelle_ kept their Provençal titles, but were made much more exact in form, and never attained the widespread celebrity of the newer shapes, which are to all intents and purposes the models for the forms in this volume, save the _sestina_, which is practically an Italian, and the _pantoum_, an Eastern form.

There is no space here to notice more than the names of a few of even the most prominent of the poets who succeeded the Provençal singers in their use of these forms. There are thousands of ballades in MSS. in the Royal French Library, by known and unknown writers. Eustache Deschamps (1328-1415), a friend of Chaucer's, "has left no less than 1175 ballades. Rondeaus, virelais, etc., also proceeded in great numbers from his pen; also an important _Art of Poetry_, a treatise rendered at once necessary and popular by the fashion of artificial rhyming."[1] Some of the earliest ballades and rondel-triolets bear the name of Jehan Froissart (1337-1410), the chronicler. Messire Guy de la Tremouille, according to Mr. Gosse, is supposed to have been the first to devise the elaborate rules of construction of the ballade, which have been in force ever since. He was guard of the Oriflamme in 1383, and died in 1398; but Deschamps is more often credited with the honour. That he cultivated the form we know, besides writing an "Art of making Chansons, Ballades, Virelais, and Rondels," which is a valuable relic of his time. Jehannot de Lescurel, "of whom absolutely nothing is known, has left sixteen ballades, fifteen rondeaus (not in regular form), and other pieces, said to be 'of singular grace, lightness, and elegance.'"

[1] See Saintsbury's _Short History of French Literature_, p. 103.

Guillaume de Machault (1284-1377) was also a voluminous writer. One of his poems, a _chanson balladée_, is printed in Mr. Saintsbury's _Short History of French Literature_, which contains also a _Ballade_ by Alain Chartier (1390-1458), the hero of the famous story of the kiss of Queen Margaret of Scotland, and other specimens of this period, in a succinct and trustworthy account of the growth of French poetry, surpassed by no book in our own language.

Charles d'Orléans (1391-1466), noticed among the English writers, is specially honoured as the master of the rondel; while François Villon (1431-1485) stands out as the "prince of all ballade-makers." For brief, but splendid sketches of these two, Mr. R. L. Stevenson's _Familiar Studies of Men and Books_ should be consulted, while for more prosaic description there is no lack of data. Since the revival of interest in Villon, France has done tardy but unstinted honour to her most famous poet, as it is the fashion just now to style him, but there is a doubt whether the praise given is not in danger of being exaggerated. Yet, making all allowances, there is vital humanity in his wondrous writings, that now, after four hundred years, read as living and modern in their presentation of life, as though they were by a realist of our own day. In Villon, student, poet, housebreaker, we find the forerunner of the Zola of to-day--one who, in so eminently an artificial form as the ballade, cast aside all conventional restraints, and sang of what he saw and knew. It is much to be regretted that space forbids more translations of his poems to be included in this collection. For those who wish to tackle him in his old, and by no means easy, French, a good edition is published for a franc, in the _Collection Jannet-Picard (Paris)_. Mr. Payne has translated the whole of his authentic works into English in a volume, at present out of print, which contains also a very graphic and full biography of this remarkable man. Space forbids insertion of the sketch of his life prepared for this chapter. Born in 1431, student 1448, B.A. in 1452, writing his _Lesser Testament_ in 1446, his _Greater Testament_ in 1461; in those few years he contrived to win more fame, and, to speak truly, more infamy, than a whole generation of lesser poets. He was condemned to die--he wrote his marvellous _Ballade of the Gibbet_ while lying under sentence of death--but escaped. Where he died is unknown, the date of his _Greater Testament_ being the last record of Master François Villon of Paris.

In 1493 appeared _L'art et science de rhéthorique pour faire rigmes et ballades_, by Henry de Croï--an invaluable treatise on French Poetics. The works of Pierre Gringoire (1478-1544) must be named, if only for the fact of De Banville's splendid ballade in his comedy "Gringoire," founded on an incident in the poet's life. By Mr. Lang's permission a translation is quoted in the body of this volume. Mr. John Payne also englished it, in the _Dublin University Magazine_, 1879. The works of Clement Marot (1497-1544) demand special note, since his _ballades_ and _chants royaux_ are now accepted as the ideal models for imitation.