It is the ambition of many a versifier to be known as a maker of sonnets. Doubtless this love for the form is prompted not only by its possibilities but even more by its traditions. Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth and Rossetti, to mention only a few of the celebrated names, were masters of the sonnet, though it must be said that the version used by the earlier English writers was not the one we know to-day.

Shakespeare's seventy-third sonnet may serve as a fair example of the arrangement of the lines in the early Elizabethan period, though even in his day the present rhyming order was pa.s.sing gradually into use.

"That time of year thou may'st in me behold When yellow leaves or few or none do hang Upon the boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death bed whereon it must expire, Consumed with that which it was nourished by.

This thou perceivest which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long."

This fourteen lines, as an examination will discover, might be written in three four-line stanzas with an additional two lines as an epigrammatic envoy. In fact it can scarcely be called a sonnet at all, and the last two lines come out with such force as to offend the ear accustomed to the more modern form.

The sonnet by Keats, "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," is an excellent ill.u.s.tration of the change in the rhyming system and emphasis.

"Much have I travelled in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.

Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne: Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific--and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise-- Silent, upon a peak in Darien."

The first eight lines rhyme: a, b, b, a, a, b, b, a; the last six: c, d, c, d, c, d. Thus the sonnet halts only at one place, the interval between the eighth and the sixth lines, where the rest is welcome, while the emphasis, instead of coming out so brazenly at the end, reaches its climax in the next to the last line, dying away gradually. The order of the eight lines in the modern sonnet is almost invariably unchanged, but the sestet is varied as the movement of the thought dictates.

As to sonnet construction little can be said here or, if one wished to go into detail, so much could be said that it would fill this volume a dozen times. Keats, Wordsworth and Rossetti, to say nothing of a dozen or more modern sonneteers, are safe models to follow. One trifling suggestion seems in order. There are so many really good sonnets now that a second-rate production is a drug on the market. Except as an exercise it is altogether superfluous. A first-cla.s.s sonnet must be grounded first on an idea and then rewritten and worked over until the idea has found a fit setting. Commonplaceness either in the idea or its expression is alike fatal.

VII

THE BALLADE AND OTHER FRENCH FORMS

CHAPTER VII

THE BALLADE AND OTHER FRENCH FORMS

The Anglo Saxons were a hard-drinking race whose bards chanted interminable battle songs to tables of uncritical, mead-filled heroes.

As a result the English language grew up without many of the finer points of verse and bare especially of all fixed forms. It was this latter lack which Austin Dobson sought to supply by imitating in English the ballade, triolet, villanelle and other verse arrangements at that time used only by the French and not very generally among them.

_The Ballade_

Of these the ballade is the best known, and Dobson's "Ballade of the Pompadour's Fan" is subjoined as one of the most popular and most easily imitated.

"Chicken skin, delicate, white, Painted by Carlo Van Loo, Loves in a riot of light, Roses and vaporous blue; Hark to the dainty frou-frou!

Picture above if you can Eyes that would melt like the dew-- This was the Pompadour's fan!

"See how they rise at the sight, Thronging the OEil de Boeuf through, Courtiers as b.u.t.terflies bright, Beauties that Fragonard drew; Talon rouge, falbala, queue, Cardinal Duke,--to a man, Eager to sigh or to sue,-- This was the Pompadour's fan.

"Ah, but things more than polite Hung on this toy, voyez vous!

Matters of state and of might, Things that great ministers do.

Things that maybe overthrew Those in whose brains they began; Here was the sign and the cue,-- This was the Pompadour's fan.

ENVOY

"Where are the secrets it knew?

Weavings of plot and of plan?

But where is the Pompadour, too?

This was the Pompadour's fan."

It will be noticed that there are but three rhyming sounds, also that the last line of the first stanza is repeated as the last line of the other two and the envoy. The lines rhyme together a, b, a, b, b, c, b, c, in each stanza and in the envoy b, c, b, c. The most frequent rhyme occurs fourteen times; the next six and the "c" rhyme five. With the exception of the refrain there is no repet.i.tion of rhymes in the proper ballade. Even Dobson's use of "cue" and "queue" is, in the strictest sense, an error.

With its difficult rhymes the ballade is an excellent school in which to learn smooth-flowing verse. If one is able to write a simple and natural ballade the ordinary stanza forms will appear ridiculously easy.

But the ballade has two bugbears: the first the refrain which refuses to come in naturally, and the second the envoy which insists on appearing as a disjointed after thought. The refrain in a good ballade makes its bow each time with a slight change in the significance and comes in not because it has been predestined for the end of the stanza, but because it is the only combination of words possible to round out the eight lines.

The envoy contains the gist of the whole matter and at the same time must be written to be read not as an appendix but as a component part of the ballade. It must always come out with a ring that leaves the spirit of the verse stamped on the reader's mind.

For overcoming these two bugbears--practice will conquer the most recalcitrant refrain and one may often circ.u.mvent an envoy by writing it first. When the sound chosen for the most frequent rhyme has but some sixteen or seventeen companion words an envoy written in the beginning will save much pondering later. It is easier to fit the unused rhymes into an eight-line stanza than into a four-line envoy, especially when the four lines are called on to sum up the thought of the whole production and give a clever turn to it as well.

_The Rondeau_

"'In teacup times!' The style of dress Would suit your beauty, I confess.

Belinda-like the patch you'd wear; I picture you with powdered hair,-- You'd made a splendid shepherdess!

"And I, no doubt, could well express Sir Plume's complete conceitedness,-- Could poise a clouded cane with care 'In teacup times.'

"The parts would fit precisely--yes: We should achieve a huge success!

You should disdain and I despair With quite the true Augustan air; But ... could I love you more or less,-- 'In teacup times'?"

The rondeau's difficulties lie in its two-rhyme limitation and the handling of the refrain. This refrain either rounds the stanzas beautifully or else plays dog in the manger with the sense. In the common form of the rondeau it is made up of the first four syllables of the first line and is repeated after the eighth and thirteenth lines.

A simpler form of the rondeau devised or at least introduced by Austin Dobson is to be found in the "May Book." This gives an idea of the rondeau's possibilities as a medium for more serious verse.

"IN ANGEL COURT

"In Angel Court the sunless air Grows faint and sick; to left and right, The cowering houses shrink from sight, Huddling and hopeless, eyeless, bare.

"Misnamed, you say, for surely rare Must be the Angel shapes that light In Angel Court.

"Nay, the Eternities are there.

Death by the doorway stands to smite; Life in its garrets leaps to light; And Love has climbed the crumbling stair In Angel Court."

Villon has varied the rondeau so as to use for a refrain a single syllable. This form, though not so flexible as the others, has its use and is very apt for obtaining certain effects.

_The Triolet_

In the matter of triolets Austin Dobson is again an authority, though his experiments in this form are scarcely as successful as his ballades and rondeaus.