Rhymes and Meters Part 5

Austin Dobson in a longer poem makes use of the following stanza:

"Across the gra.s.s I see her pa.s.s; She comes with tripping pace,-- A maid I know, the March winds blow Her hair across her face;-- With a hey, Dolly! ho Dolly!

Dolly shall be mine, Before the spray is white with May Or blooms the eglantine."

In all of Kipling the singing quality is dominant. He is to be marked especially because in his songs he has combined the old meters so as to give the effect of absolute novelty. The Scotch poets of Burns' time and before, offer many excellent chances for imitation and study.

Shakespeare's occasional songs are always true. A seldom quoted poem of Lord Byron's is full of melody:

"So we'll go no more a roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright.

"For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And love itself have rest.

"Though the night was made for loving And the day returns too soon, Yet we'll go no more a roving By the light of the moon."

Just exactly where the singing quality of a song lies it is hard to tell. It is not altogether in the open vowels or the meter or the flow of thought, though dependent on all three. It is impossible to formulate any rule for the construction of the song except the general laws of good taste. The only plan is to try and try again until the result contains something of the singing quality. Very often it is helpful to fit the words to some air imaginary or otherwise which runs in the head.

The song may be long or short, tell little or a great deal. In practice, as a rule, it is less than twenty-four lines in length and expresses a single thought or emotion. Its only two essentials are that it be graceful and that it sing.

IX

TYPES OF MODERN VERSE

CHAPTER IX

TYPES OF MODERN VERSE

_Vers de Societe_

Vers de societe, "society verse," is a development of the last century; almost, one might say, of the last twenty-five years. In that time there has been composed a great volume of this sort of verse upon which a number of the minor poets have based their claims to remembrance. It is difficult to define _vers de societe_; in fact, the only way it can be described is through examples. Its characteristics are a gracefulness of thought and style, a fluency in expression, a vein of delicate humor or sentiment and a subject which falls within the limits of "polite conversation." It sparkles or should sparkle with clever turns of thought and at times even descends to a sort of punning. No attempt is made to reach the sublime, but serious _vers de societe_ is often written and is the more effective because of its contrasted setting. The ballade, rondeau and triolet are favorite expressions of this style of verse, for in general its writers seek difficult stanza forms with rhymes natural but never hackneyed.

As an exercise its making is both profitable and difficult. On trial, it will be found no easy matter to write line after line of every-day English into balanced verse that is not commonplace, but once well done it is a much easier task to find a market.

Calverley's "Fly Leaves" approach the cla.s.sic of _vers de societe_.

Austin Dobson has worked in a more serious vein. Praed has written some delightfully easy specimens of the style, while in America John G. Saxe, Oliver Wendell Holmes and a number of contemporary writers are responsible for an extensive output ranking well up with England's.

_The Dramatic Interlude_

The serious drama in verse nowadays is a drug on the market as far as selling power is concerned, unless we except the plays of Stephen Phillips. There is, however, a sort of dramatic interlude which is not only marketable but much more easily and pleasantly written; a composition on the general order of Dobson's "Proverbs in Porcelain." A study of the "Proverbs" will go further for an understanding of the subject than pages of explanation.

They are written in iambic tetrameter which is kept from singsongness by the action of the dialogue. The characters seldom end their speeches at the end of the line but rather in the middle, and the line is filled out by the first words of the next speaker.

These little play fragments, built in the form of a delicate comedy, are not long enough to exhaust either writer or reader and are even to be met with now and then in our modern magazines. Their value for the verse maker lies in the premium which they put upon ease and naturalness of expression, though in addition they present a novel exercise to the student who is tired of writing his narratives in conventional verse.

The "Proverbs" are suggested not as models to copy absolutely but rather as the base of variations which the verse maker may devise to suit his theme.

_Nonsense Verse_

Nonsense verse in its present development is a fairly modern growth. It began with the limerick which first reached the public under the kindly patronage of Mother Goose:

"There was an old man of Bombay, Who pulled at a pipe made of clay, But a long-legged snipe Flew away with the pipe Which vexed that old man of Bombay."

With this as a beginning the limerick has spread far and wide. It has secured a place in modern nonsense verse corresponding to that of the sonnet in more serious efforts. There are even limerick fiends who pride themselves on their writing of limericks and others whose collections of the form total up in the thousands.

It is very seldom that one sees a limerick now with the first and last lines identical. As a rule the last line differs from the first and ends in a new rhyme. The following taken from _Life_ represents the apotheosis of the limerick:

"A German from over the Rhine When asked at what hour he would dine, Replied, 'At Five, Seven, Eight, Ten and Eleven, Four, Six and a Quarter to Nine!'"

Edward Lear, an English writer, began the popularization of the limerick in his nonsense books about 1850 and since his time it has been experimented with by many of the cleverest writers now before the public.

But nonsense verse is not confined to this one form. Pa.s.sing from the work of Lear we come to Lewis Carroll's verse in "Alice in Wonderland."

Nothing of its kind better than "Jabberwocky" has ever been written, and it would be a bold verse maker who would try to improve on "The Walrus and the Carpenter," or any of the other "Alice poems."

In a different way, though perhaps as amusing, is the Gelett Burgess style of nonsense verse typified in his n.o.ble quatrain to the Purple Cow:

"I never saw a purple cow, I never hope to see one; But this I'll tell you anyhow I'd rather see than be one."

Some years ago the college humorous publications originated a bloodthirsty conceit which touched the doings of Little Willie:

"Little Willie yesterday When the baby went to play Filled him full of kerosene.

Gee! but isn't Willie mean!"

Since then the murderous adventures of "Little Willie" have been countless.

They are all cannibalistic but rather catchy.

The awful thing about nonsense verse is the very fine line that divides a masterpiece from utter drivel. Nonsense verse is very good or very bad. When it plays along the edges it is very pleasing but when it oversteps it becomes rot.

_The Humorous Ballad_

A step higher in the ladder is the Humorous Ballad. The "Comic Ballad"

we have had with us from the days of Robin Hood, but W. S. Gilbert in his "Bab Ballads" reached heights before his time unsuspected. By the use of catchy stanzas and unusual rhymes he made the type a thing of art. Most readers are familiar with the "Yarn of the Nancy Bell," in which the solitary sailor sings:

"Oh, I am the cook and the captain bold And the mate of the Nancy brig; And the bos'n tight and the mids.h.i.+pmite And the crew of the captain's gig."

Since the publication of the "Bab Ballads" a great deal of verse has been produced along the same general lines. Mr. Wallace Irwin's "Nautical Ballads of a Landsman" are the most notable additions of recent years.

X

VERSE TRANSLATION