THE TRICKY TRIOLET.

Otago Witness, Issue 3862, 20 March 1928, Page 78

THE TRICKY TRIOLET.

Easy is the triolet If you really learn to make it. Once a neat refrain you get, Easy is the triolet. As you see, I pay my debt With another rhyme—deuce take it I Easy is the triolet If you really learn to make it. —William Ernest Henley. It was George Macdonald wlio wrote: “That triolet—how deliciously impertinent it is, is it not? The variety of dainty modes wherein by shape and sound a very pretty something is carved cut of nothing at all.” To state it more soberly, a triolet is of eight lines with two rhymes, whereof the first pair of lines are repeated as the seventh and eighth, and the first line as the fourth. Is this quite clear?

The first known triolet consists of only 20,000 verses! It is the work of Adenez-le-Roi, who flourished between a.d. 1258 and 1297. Speaking generally, the triolet is one of those delightful forms of old French verse which nobody apparently even attempted to imitate in the English tongue until the last half of the nineteenth century. Indeed, the late and great Austin Dobson once told me that when he published his “ Roseleaves ” in the Graphic in 1875 he believed he was the first to write triolets in English, until he discovered that he had been anticipated by Dr Robert Bridges, now Poet Laureate. Here is one of Dr Bridges’s triolets: — When first we met, we did not guess That love would prove so hard a master; Of more than common friendliness When first we met we did not guess. Who could foretell the sore distress, This irretrievable disaster. When first we met?—we did not guess That love would prove so hard a master. * * As I have already mentioned Austin Dobson, it is but fitting that brief quotation be made from his inimitable series of six “ Roseleaves.” The last of them runs as follows:— Oh Love's but a dance Where Time plays the fidije ! See the couples advance— Oh Love’s but a dance! A whisper, a glance—- “ Shall we twirl down the middle?” Oh Lovb’s but a dance Where Time plays the fiddle. One of our most distinguished living men of letters, Edmund Gosse, has also dabbled in the triolet form. Here follows a copy of a tender little verselet in which Dr Gosse displayed an ingenious combination of wit and wisdom:—• Happy, my life, the love you proffer, Eternal as the gods above; With such a wealth within my coffer. Happy my life. The love you proffer— If your true heart sustains the offer— Will prove the Koh-i-noor of love;

Happy my life ! The love you proffer, Eternal as the gods above*

One writer has enthusiastically characterised the triolet as “ charming—nothing can be more ingeniously mischievous, more playfully sly, than this tiny trill of epigrammatic melody turning so simply upon its own innocent axis.”

May one submit that the following by Mr Justin Huntly M'Carthy almost fulfils the ideal conditions? — Here’s a flower for your grave, Little love of last year ; ' Since I once was your slave. Here’s a flower for your grave; Since I once used to rave In the praise of my dear, Here’s a flower for your grave, Little love of last year. ■

One critic has condemned the triolet as the “gymnastics of verse.” Ah me! you cannot have it all ways, and in this example (whose authorship I have failed to identify) one seems to find a certain wise withal tuneful philosophy:— When my toes are turned to the daisies And the birds sing overhead, Far from the turmoil that crazes When my toes are turned to the daisies, No longer threading life’s mazes. Easy shall be my bed. When my toes are turned to the daisies And the birds sing overhead. * * *

The acme of pathos is almost attained in these moving lines from the pen of Mr H. C. Brunner:—

A pitcher of mignonette In a tenement's highest casement; Queer sort of a flower pot—yet That pitcher ot mignonetre Is a garden in heaven set To the little sick child in the basement— The pitcher of mignonette In the tenement’s highest casement. It seems impossible to avoid reproduction of this sweet sentiment from Mr Gri filth Alexander: —

She's neither scholarly nor wise. But O, her heart is wond'rous tender. And love lies laughing in her eyes —She's neither scholarly nor wise— And yet above al! else I prize The right from evil to defend her. She's neither scholarly nor wise. But O, her heart is wond'rous tender. It was the late Haddon Chambers, himself an Australian, who called my attention to a verse written, I believe, by a long-ago colonial poet, Robert Daley: — “ Glory calls me, I must go I” Said the lover to his lady. Gallant words are these, I trow, “Glory calls me, I must go!” Back he came —another beau Toying with her tresses shady. “ Glory calls me, I must go!” Said the lover-to his lady. —Percy Cross Standing, in John o’ London’s Weekly.