San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-10-23
FANCIES IN VERSE.
CURIOUS METHODS OF RHYNANe
WHICH ARE THE FASHION.
List Of Singular Little Songs Con-
structed After the Methods of the
Troubadours-BaIlade Rondeau, Triolet
and Vireiai-For Winter Evenings.


Some of our readers of literary turn may
be interested in the new forms of verse,
which really are immensely old, but which,
like many old things adopted into the new,
are just now quite the fashion among poets
or poetasters Many of these forms, with
their curious repeated rhymes, and half mad
Interviewing of rhymes, originated with the
troubadours and trouveres and Provencal
singers generally; but they have been
changed in process Of growth till their orig
inators would hardly know them. OF these
forms, adapted at any rate, from the old
French, those enjoying most prominence to
day are the ballade, the chant royal, the
kyrielle, the pantomine, the rondel, rondeau
and rondelet, the CLOSE, the sestina, the trio
let, the willamette, the lay and the virelai
The refrain or burden has a great deal to
do with these singular little songs In other
poetry, says a critic, an ordinary refrain is
kept to one note resounding through the
whole poem, much as the drone bass in pif
ferari or musette music is kept going through
out"
Mr.. Austin Dobson is said to have written
the first ballade which we have in English
The ballade, according to rule, has three
eight line stanzas, and a verse called the en-
voy, at the close, of four lines; or it can
consist of three stanzas of ten lines and an
envoy of five. The same set of rhymes must
be used in every verse, but never the same
word again, except in the refrain which
must close each stanZa, and the envoy, the
envoy having the rhymes OF the last half of
the last verse. The whole is governed deS-
politically by the refrain, an eight syilabled
refrain requiring an eight line stanza, a ten
Syllabled ten line stanza, and the sense of
the stanza must not pause il the middle,
but must continue 10 !e capped by the re-
Train. The envoy always remembers the old
tiShion of addressing the verse to person.
.. person of dislinctiol as the prince or lord
or chatelaine-and should be thr climax of
the whole.
Another quaint ver"e form IS lIo ky'rieile
! four lined V. Ise OF eigEt syi4bed lines
:av.:.S each last limo the same Another is
;i@ pautOUrn, which, SO fIr !IoM being of
~ I'Tynth, is Of AsiltIc Oh 1Ial1y descent;
:! consists OF four lined StaE:,ss, the second
a.L .Dl4..l l.nC5 of each maxim, th' first and
.....,l O.. t..r u2Ti, I'D 81 JI indefinitely,
n..., g: oE .i.,,,..il, the ssvJld all. fourth
ii csc! lii, -. ,oaaza from The first and
1.I.,i 81! the :il>l one. The r0Ilel, the old
Iv:'.n Of the word rondeau, came directly
f.'u.a :ru,y..ce, 4Au greatly resembles the
t.ioIr- =. ne ronLGau is written OF two
rhymes, l. has thirteen lines and two un-
rn HI! rcf.t...I line, Tie refrain usually be-
I!lg i TO :c.itiou Of the frs Lalf OF The first
Lipe, LuJ being OF especial importance, ;ue
climax of the whole arrangement, and of
spontaneous and lot labored effect, being in
troduced as if tao lines flowed into it of their
own accord The ROUNDED, another slight
variation, is thought to be the invention of
Mr.. Swinburne.
The rondelet is just little matter of seven
lines, used to express any brief fancy, open
ing with line of four syllables, which is re-
peated after one eight syllabled line, and
again after three others, the first of which
three lines rhymes with the repeat the others
with the second line. The CLOSE another
freak, is used more in Spanish and Portu-
Euese than in French; it begins with a
quatrain called a texte, which it amplifies
in four stanzas Of ten lines, each closing with
one of the lines of the opening quatrain, in
every verse the sixth, ninth and tenth lines
rhyming with each other, other lines taking
any rhymes. The sestina was invented By
tao troubadour Arnaut Daniel. and was used.
by Dante and Petrarch; it is of six stanzas
81 SIX lilies each, Ipe Six WOTuS luaI emu the
six lines do not rhyme, but the same six
lords end every line throughout the poem,
losing with three line stanza which Uses
10 six words, three at the end and three il
ne middle.
The triolet is the play of words and tu-a
which has been most popular, because most
easy, probably. 1t consists of eight lines,
and keeps to two rhymes; the first pair OF
rhymes are again the seventh and eighth,
and the first is also the fourth; the third,
fourth and fifth rhyme with the first, tho
sixth with the second. The triolet has to
tell its story in five lines, and carry The re-
peat so easily as to be charming and Tot
strained; the first one printed in modern
English was by Mr.. Robert Bridges. The
willamette, of which species MIR. Edmund
Gosse wrote the first in English, has been
called 1.-THE most ravishing jewel worn by
the muse Erato;" it was originally q shep-
herds song; it is complete in nineteen lines,
five three lined stanZas and an ending ono
of four lines; eight lines given up to the re-
frain, which consists Of the first and third
lines used alternately, and at the close 10th
together. There remain the lay and tho
virelai. The lay is of couplets Of five sylla
bled lines, all the same recurring rhyme, in
terspersed by single lines of two syllablcs
rhyming; thus only two rhymes are used,
each new stanza taking new rhymes. But
in the virelai there is a sequence of the same
rhymes throughout all the stanzas, the sec
ond verse taking the short line rhymes for
its own long lines, and a new rhyme for the
short ones.
We have been thus minute in describing
these forms of word play on account of The
general interest in them. Their composition