The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1888-05-12

hear their weary tread
Clang from the tower and go
Back to their kinsfolk dead
sleep! Deaths twin brother dread
Why dost thou sc0rn me so?
The winds voice overhead
Long wakefnl here know,
And music from the steep
Where waters fall and now.
Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep?
All sounds that might bestow
Rest on the feyered bed
All Slumbr0uS sounds and low
Are mingled here and wed,
And bring no drowshed.
Shy dreams fit to and fro
With shad0wy hair dispread;
With wlsftul eyes that glow,
And silent robes that sweep.
Thou wilt not hear me; no?
VIII thou not hear me, Sleep?
What cause hast thou TO show
or sacrifice unsped?
OF all thy slaves below
| most have labored
with service sung and said;
Have culled such buds as blow
Soft pop'es white and red
Where thy still gardens grow
And Lethe's waters weep,
Why then art thou my foe?
Wilt thou not hear me- Sleep?
Eaeoi
Prince ere the dark be sped
By golden shafts, ere low
And long the shadows creep;
Lord OF the wand OF lead,
SOft-fOoted as the snow.
Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep?
Apropos of the ballades included in Mr..
Gleason Whites anthology, it may be said
since he so courteously asks for correction
of any inadvertencies in his volume-that
the ballade In Winter page 49, seems to
have been written in ignorance of one of the
first laws Of that form of verse; That no
word, except the last word of the refrain,
-gii6sy be used twice as q rhyme. In the work
of compiling so many poems, it would not
have been possible for Mr.. White to prove,
line by line, the accuracy of each; and he
had right to suppose that ballade, written
by an esteemed author, would be technically
correct.
There is no reason why the sestina and
chant royal should not be as useful as the
sonnet; and even more capable of develop
ment appears the double ballade. The SEES
tina is meditative, the expression of persis-
tent thought or mood viewed from every SIDE
The chant royal requires, on the contrary, a
mounting lyric ecstasy or solemn rapture !;
while the double ballade has its technique
less in evidence than is the case with the
ordinary ballade, and appears capable of an
unlimited range of expression.
None but competent verslfer can hope to
produce great effects in these exacting
forms; one would advise beginners to prac-
tise them freely but refrain from printing
many Of them. The weight of the letters
which they lay upon poetic expression is,
however, often exaggerated by writers on
verse. No one has felt any necessity to pity
Mr.. Swinburne for the severe conditions of
the rhymes of his great odes-for instance
the superb resume Of the works of Lander
and he is not less capable in the making of a
ROUNDED. Hear him as he gives singing
lesson on
THE ROUNDED.
ROUNDED is wrought as ring OF starlight
With craft d delight and with cunning If sound
That the heart of the nearer may smile if to pleas
ure his ear
ROUNDED is wrought.
Its jewel Of music is carven Of all or of aught,
Love laughter or neutrality-suspicious. of rap
That fancy may fashion to hang In he ear of
thought
AS birds quick song runs round. and the hearts
Pause answers to pause, and again the same
strain caught,
So moves the device whence round as a pearl or
tear,
ROUNDED is wrought.
There is encouragement, indeed, to believe
that the exactions Of these intricate schemes
of rhyme and refrain are help, not less
than hindrance to poet; and that, in tax
ing his verbal power, they widen the scope
of his imagination. A hint of this is exquis-
itely given by NJ. Lemaitre, cited by Mr..
Gleeson White:
The poet who begins ballade does not know
very exactly what he will put into 1t. The rhyme,
ana nothing but the rhyme, will whisper things
Unexpected and charming, things he never would
nave thought OF but for her, things with strange
ana remote relations to each other all united In
the disorder of dream Nothing, indeed, is rich
er IN suggestion than the strict laws of these diff
cult pieces; they force the fancy TO wander aield
hunting high and low. and while She seeks
through all the world the foot that can wear Gin
defella,s slipper, she makes delightful discover
les by the way"
1t may also be suggested that this good
fairy of rhyme is not altogether capricious in
her leadings. One reason why-despite that
which is or may be said against its perma-
nence-Verse has never lacked love during
this worlds history is because rhythm and
rhyme are founded upon natural laws and
natural growths. Rhyme derives much of
its charm and worth from the groups into
which assonance originally divided the roots
of language. When primitive speech first
initiated the sound Of cracking branches, o
cries of birds, or susurrus of waves on the
shore, there was the germ of the evolution of
the ballade. Thus we shall believe that
there exist subtle spiritual bonds as well as
exterior resembances in the sound of words /;
and may even make some interesting discov-
cries in archaeology when we follow rhyme
afield.
AT least it is certain that the spontaneous
instinct of Mr.. Austin Dobson. Mr.. Edmund
Gosse, Mr.. Swinburne and others who have
revived for English literature these antique
forms and clothed them in the richest gar
ments of modern language, was sensitive
and accurate comment upon the present
needs of the art of poetry. Their emphatic
advocacy of the study of the technique of
verse can do nothing but good to the rising
race of poets, in teaching them that Poetry
does not thrive hanging like an air-plant.
but has roots in the serious and patient stud y
by which success is to be obtained In every
other department of art. New York: ID.
Appleton & Co.; Portland: Loring Short g.
Harmony