CHAPTER VIII

THE OLD FRENCH FORMS

No false constraint be thine!
But, for right walking, choose
The fine,

The strict cothurnus, Muse.

Alfred Noyes: “Art” (from the French of Théophile Gautier)

THE past half-century has seen established in English a number of poetic forms even more rigid than the sonnet in structural requirements. The fact that most of these forms were zealously cultivated in the pre-classic period of French literature has led to their being described by the term "Old French." Although poems of this general type had been composed by Chaucer, who, living at the court of Edward III, was under French influence, it was not until 1871 that the revival of interest occurred. In modern English the most celebrated makers of these rigid molds of thought have been British-Andrew Lang, Austin Dobson, and William Ernest Henley. Around New York, however, worthy examples have been produced, notably by Brander Matthews, Henry Cuyler Bunner, Frank Dempster Sherman, Edwin Arlington Robinson, and more recently-Louis Untermeyer. As a result of fifty years of dissemination, the types can no longer be said to be strictly exotic. Of the numerous kinds men

tioned in more detailed studies, the ballade and the rondeau are undoubtedly the most important, their nearest rivals being the triolet and the villanelle. Others not infrequently met with are the rondel, the roundel, the pantoum, and the sestina. Variants of these, together with still other forms, are discussed and exemplified in Gleeson White's excellent book, Ballades and Rondeaus.

The ballade, the nearest rival to the sonnet in expressing serious thought in a pleasing stereotyped mold, can best be discussed after a few examples have been read. Our first specimen is taken from Lang's Ballades in Blue China, a volume characterized by its marked finish of workmanship and its presupposition of culture on the part of the reader. The "Ballade to Theocritus" expresses the power of poetry to enable a reader to transcend his surroundings. Sicily was a seat of late Greek wealth and culture. Theocritus, a Sicilian Greek of the third century B. C., was the "father" of pastoral poetry.

BALLADE TO THEOCRITUS, IN WINTER

Ah! leave the smoke, the wealth, the roar
Of London, and the bustling street,

For still, by the Sicilian shore,

The murmur of the Muse is sweet.
Still, still, the suns of summer greet
The mountain-grave of Helikê,
And shepherds still their songs repeat
Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea.

What though they worship Pan no more,
That guarded once the shepherd's seat,
They chatter of their rustic lore,

They watch the wind among the wheat:
Cicalas chirp, the young lambs bleat,
Where whispers pine to cypress tree;
They count the waves that idly beat
Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea.

Theocritus! thou canst restore
The pleasant years, and over-fleet;
With thee we live as men of yore,
We rest where running waters meet:
And then we turn unwilling feet
And seek the world- -so must it be-
We may not linger in the heat
Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea!

Master,

Envoy

when rain, and snow, and sleet And northern winds are wild, to thee We come, we rest in thy retreat,

Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea!

Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

From Ballades in Blue China is taken also the following superb poem. The Southern Cross is the polar constellation of the southern hemisphere.

BALLADE OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS

Fair islands of the silver fleece,

Hoards of unsunned, uncounted gold,
Whose havens are the haunts of Peace,
Whose boys are in our quarrel bold;
Our bolt is shot, our tale is told,
Our ship of state in storms may toss,
But ye are young if we are old,
Ye Islands of the Southern Cross!

Ay, we may dwindle and decrease,
Such fates the ruthless years unfold;
And yet we shall not wholly cease,
We shall not perish unconsoled;
Nay, still shall freedom keep her hold
Within the sea's inviolate fosse,
And boast her sons of English mould,
Ye Islands of the Southern Cross!

All empires tumble-Rome and Greece-
Their swords are rust, their altars cold!
For us, the Children of the Seas,
Who ruled where'er the waves have rolled.
For us, in Fortune's book enscrolled,

I read no runes of hopeless loss;

Nor-while ye last-our knell is tolled,
Ye Islands of the Southern Cross!

Envoy

Britannia, when thy hearth's a-cold,
When o'er thy grave has grown the moss,
Still Rule Australia shall be trolled

In Islands of the Southern Cross!

Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

The poem we quote below holds a high place among tributes to the heroes of old. Although Dobson uses the term ballad, ballade should be used; for the former term has been preëmpted, as shown in Chapter VI, by an entirely different type of poem.

A BALLAD OF HEROES

Because you passed, and now are not—
Because, in some remoter day,
Your sacred dust from doubtful spot

Was blown of ancient airs away,-
Because you perished, must men say
Your deeds were naught, and so profane
Your lives with that cold burden? Nay,
The deeds you wrought are not in vain!

Though, it may be, above the plot
That hid your once imperial clay,
No greener than o'er men forgot
The unregarding grasses sway;-
Though there no sweeter is the lay
From careless bird,-though you remain
Without distinction of decay,-

The deeds you wrought are not in vain!

No. For while yet in tower or cot
Your story stirs the pulses' play;
And men forget the sordid lot—

The sordid care, of cities gray;-
While yet beset in homelier fray,
They learn from you the lesson plain

That Life may go, so Honour stay,-
The deeds you wrought are not in vain!

Envoy

Heroes of old! I humbly lay

The laurel on your graves again;

Whatever men have done, men may,

The deeds you wrought are not in vain.

Austin Dobson (1840-1921)

"The Prodigals" not only exhibits the form, but, with its consciously archaic background and diction, reflects the tone of the typical medieval ballade.