Three ballades
Nov. 9th, 2010 07:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marnanelA ballade is a lyric poem rhymed ababbcbc ababbcbc ababbcbc bcbc; the last line of each stanza is the same; the final bcbc part is called an "envoi" and is traditionally addressed to a prince. Now you know enough to be going on with. Here are three of my favourites:
Firstly, the Ballade of Illegal Ornaments, by Hilaire Belloc, about the High and Low parties in the Church of England. This was occasioned by a newspaper report of the Bishop of Birmingham (+Ernest William Barnes) telling a priest named Dr Leigh to remove from his church "all illegal ornaments, and especially a Female Figure with a Child". The poem begins by discussing and explaining contemporary events, but ends somewhere quite different.
When that the Eternal deigned to look
On us poor folk to make us free
He chose a Maiden, whom He took
From Nazareth in Galilee;
Since when the Islands of the Sea,
The Field, the City, and the Wild
Proclaim aloud triumphantly
A Female Figure with a Child.
These Mysteries profoundly shook
The Reverend Doctor Leigh, D.D.,
Who therefore stuck into a Nook
(Or Niche) of his Incumbency
An Image filled with majesty
To represent the Undefiled,
The Universal Mother— She—
A Female Figure with a Child.
His Bishop, having read a book
Which proved as plain as plain could be
That all the Mutts had been mistook
Who talked about a Trinity
Wrote off at once to Doctor Leigh
In manner very far from mild,
And said: “Remove them instantly!
A Female Figure with a Child!”
Prince Jesus, in mine Agony,
Permit me, broken and defiled,
Through blurred and glazing eyes to see
A Female Figure with a Child.
Next, Ballade of Suicide by Chesterton. This is fairly well-known. It has the quirk that rhyme a is equal to rhyme c. Again, this has a turn, a change of mood: it starts off jokingly, and turns around in the last stanza. (The prince in this ballade is presumably Satan.)
The gallows in my garden, people say,
Is new and neat and adequately tall.
I tie the noose on in a knowing way
As one that knots his necktie for a ball;
But just as all the neighbours— on the wall—
Are drawing a long breath to shout "Hurray!"
The strangest whim has seized me… After all
I think I will not hang myself today.
Tomorrow is the time I get my pay—
My uncle's sword is hanging in the hall—
I see a little cloud all pink and grey—
Perhaps the rector's mother will not call—
I fancy that I heard from Mr. Gall
That mushrooms could be cooked another way—
I never read the works of Juvenal—
I think I will not hang myself today.
The world will have another washing day;
The decadents decay; the pedants pall;
And H. G. Wells has found that children play,
And Bernard Shaw discovered that they squall;
Rationalists are growing rational—
And through thick woods one finds a stream astray,
So secret that the very sky seems small—
I think I will not hang myself today.
Prince, I can hear the trumpet of Germinal,
The tumbrils toiling up the terrible way;
Even today your royal head may fall—
I think I will not hang myself today.
Lastly, another by Belloc: the Ballade of Hell and of Mrs Roebeck, which uses the repeated line to great effect at the end.
I'm going out to dine at Gray's
With Bertie Morden, Charles, and Kit,
And Manderly who never pays,
And Jane who wins in spite of it,
And Algernon who won't admit
The truth about his curious hair
And teeth that very nearly fit:
And Mrs Roebeck will be there.
And then tomorrow someone says
That someone else has made a hit
In one of Mr Twister's plays,
And off we go to yawn at it;
And when it's petered out we quit
For number 20, Taunton Square,
And smoke, and drink, and dance a bit:
And Mrs Roebeck will be there.
And so through each declining phase
Of emptied effort, jaded wit,
And day by day of London days
Obscurely, more obscurely, lit;
Until the uncertain shadows flit
Announcing to the shuddering air
A Darkening, and the end of it:
And Mrs Roebeck will be there.
Prince, on their iron thrones they sit,
Impassible to our despair,
The dreadful Guardians of the Pit:
And Mrs Roebeck will be there.
(As to my own work: I keep trying to hit the ballade mark and missing it. I have accidentally rhymed them ababcdcd (and again), and ababcbcb. The repeating line rule means it's well-nigh impossible to turn ababcbcb into ababbcbc without a complete rewrite. However, this one is a true ballade.)
Firstly, the Ballade of Illegal Ornaments, by Hilaire Belloc, about the High and Low parties in the Church of England. This was occasioned by a newspaper report of the Bishop of Birmingham (+Ernest William Barnes) telling a priest named Dr Leigh to remove from his church "all illegal ornaments, and especially a Female Figure with a Child". The poem begins by discussing and explaining contemporary events, but ends somewhere quite different.
When that the Eternal deigned to look
On us poor folk to make us free
He chose a Maiden, whom He took
From Nazareth in Galilee;
Since when the Islands of the Sea,
The Field, the City, and the Wild
Proclaim aloud triumphantly
A Female Figure with a Child.
These Mysteries profoundly shook
The Reverend Doctor Leigh, D.D.,
Who therefore stuck into a Nook
(Or Niche) of his Incumbency
An Image filled with majesty
To represent the Undefiled,
The Universal Mother— She—
A Female Figure with a Child.
His Bishop, having read a book
Which proved as plain as plain could be
That all the Mutts had been mistook
Who talked about a Trinity
Wrote off at once to Doctor Leigh
In manner very far from mild,
And said: “Remove them instantly!
A Female Figure with a Child!”
Prince Jesus, in mine Agony,
Permit me, broken and defiled,
Through blurred and glazing eyes to see
A Female Figure with a Child.
Next, Ballade of Suicide by Chesterton. This is fairly well-known. It has the quirk that rhyme a is equal to rhyme c. Again, this has a turn, a change of mood: it starts off jokingly, and turns around in the last stanza. (The prince in this ballade is presumably Satan.)
The gallows in my garden, people say,
Is new and neat and adequately tall.
I tie the noose on in a knowing way
As one that knots his necktie for a ball;
But just as all the neighbours— on the wall—
Are drawing a long breath to shout "Hurray!"
The strangest whim has seized me… After all
I think I will not hang myself today.
Tomorrow is the time I get my pay—
My uncle's sword is hanging in the hall—
I see a little cloud all pink and grey—
Perhaps the rector's mother will not call—
I fancy that I heard from Mr. Gall
That mushrooms could be cooked another way—
I never read the works of Juvenal—
I think I will not hang myself today.
The world will have another washing day;
The decadents decay; the pedants pall;
And H. G. Wells has found that children play,
And Bernard Shaw discovered that they squall;
Rationalists are growing rational—
And through thick woods one finds a stream astray,
So secret that the very sky seems small—
I think I will not hang myself today.
Prince, I can hear the trumpet of Germinal,
The tumbrils toiling up the terrible way;
Even today your royal head may fall—
I think I will not hang myself today.
Lastly, another by Belloc: the Ballade of Hell and of Mrs Roebeck, which uses the repeated line to great effect at the end.
I'm going out to dine at Gray's
With Bertie Morden, Charles, and Kit,
And Manderly who never pays,
And Jane who wins in spite of it,
And Algernon who won't admit
The truth about his curious hair
And teeth that very nearly fit:
And Mrs Roebeck will be there.
And then tomorrow someone says
That someone else has made a hit
In one of Mr Twister's plays,
And off we go to yawn at it;
And when it's petered out we quit
For number 20, Taunton Square,
And smoke, and drink, and dance a bit:
And Mrs Roebeck will be there.
And so through each declining phase
Of emptied effort, jaded wit,
And day by day of London days
Obscurely, more obscurely, lit;
Until the uncertain shadows flit
Announcing to the shuddering air
A Darkening, and the end of it:
And Mrs Roebeck will be there.
Prince, on their iron thrones they sit,
Impassible to our despair,
The dreadful Guardians of the Pit:
And Mrs Roebeck will be there.
(As to my own work: I keep trying to hit the ballade mark and missing it. I have accidentally rhymed them ababcdcd (and again), and ababcbcb. The repeating line rule means it's well-nigh impossible to turn ababcbcb into ababbcbc without a complete rewrite. However, this one is a true ballade.)
