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RONDEAU REDOUBLÉ.

My day and night are in my lady's hand; I have no other sunrise than her sight;

For me her favour glorifies the land; Her anger darkens all the cheerful light.

Her face is fairer than the hawthorn white, When all a-flower in May the hedgerows stand; While she is kind, I know of no affright; My day and night are in my lady's hand.

All heaven in her glorious eyes is spanned; Her smile is softer than the summer's night, Gladder than daybreak on the Faery strand;

I have no other sunrise than her sight.

Her silver speech is like the singing flight
Of runnels rippling o'er the jewelled sand;
Her kiss a dream of delicate delight;
For me her favour glorifies the land.

What if the Winter chase the Summer bland! The gold sun in her hair burns ever bright. If she be sad, straightway all joy is banned; Her anger darkens all the cheerful light.

Come weal or woe, I am my lady's knight And in her service every ill withstand;

Love is my Lord in all the world's despite
And holdeth in the hollow of his hand

My day and night.
JOHN PAYNE.

THE PRAYER OF DRYOPE.

(Rondeau Redoublé.)

O goddess sweet, give ear unto my prayer.
Come with thy doves across the briny sea,
Leave thy tall fanes and thy rose gardens rare,
From cruel bondage set thy vot'ress free!

Ah how my heart would joy again to be
Like chirming bird that cleaves the sunny air,
Like wildwood roe that bounds in ecstasy;
O goddess sweet, give ear unto my prayer!

That I am innocent hast thou no care
Of crime against celestial deity?
Must I the fate of lovely Lotis share?—

Come with thy doves across the briny sea!

I hear no waters' silvern melody,

And yet the rippling water once was there, And on its bloomy banks I worshipped thee;— Leave thy tall fanes and thy rose gardens rare!

Could I but feel my boy's hands on my hair,
Could I but kiss my sister Iole,

Then bravely would I cast forth chill despair,
From cruel bondage set thy vot'ress free!

I, who was once the blithesome Dryope,

Am now a tree bole, cold and brown and bare;

Pity, I pray, my ceaseless agony,

Or grant forgetfulness of all things fair,

O goddess sweet.

CLINTON SCOLLARD

RONDEAU REDOUBLÉ.

I will go hence, and seek her, my old Love;
All bramble-laced, and moss-grown is the way,
There is no sun, nor broad, red moon above,

The year is old, he said, and skies are grey.

The rose-wreaths fade, the viols are not gay.
That which seemed sweet doth passing bitter prove;
So sweet she was, she will not say me nay-

I will go hence and seek her, my oid Love.

Low, labouring sighs stirred coldly through the grove,
Where buds unblossomed on the mosses lay;
His upraised hands the dusky tangle clove,

All bramble-laced and moss-grown is the way!"

With grievous eyes, and lips that smiled alway,
Strange, flitting shapes, wreathed round him as he

strove

Their spectral arms, and filmy green array;

There was no sun, nor broad red moon above.

Here lies her lute- and here her slender glove; (Her bower well won, sweet joy shall crown the day);

But her he saw not, vanished was his Love,

The year is old, he said, and skies are grey.

The wrong was mine! he cried. I left my dove (He flung him down upon the weeping clay),

And now I find her flown-ah wellaway!

The house is desolate that held my Love,

I will go hence.

GRAHAM R. TOMSON.

THE SICILIAN OCTAVE DESCRIBED AND

EXEMPLIFIED.

To thee, fair Isle, Italia's satellite,
Italian harps their native measures lend;
Yet, wooing sweet diversity, not quite
Thy octaves with Italia's octaves blend.
Six streaming lines amass the arrowy might
In hers, one cataract couplet doth expend;
Thine lake wise widens, level in the light,
And like to its beginning is its end.

To thee 'tis pleasure, haply to have brought
Home precious ware from China or Japan;
And thine, when keen and long pursuit hath caught
Strange bird, or Psyche gay with veinèd fan-
And thine, to spell some sentence wisdom-fraught
In palimpest or Arab alcoran;

And mine, to seize some rare and coloured thought
And cage it in my verse Sicilian.

RICHARD GARNETT, LL.D.

Although this shape is not actually akin to the group of forms in this book, yet for examples of another variety of strict verse, the author has kindly allowed two specimens to be quoted.

The

Rondel, Rondeau, and Roundel.

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