WHAT
is to come we know not. But we know
That what has been was good--was good to show,
Better to hide, and best of all to bear.
We are the masters of the days that were;
We have lived, we have loved, we have suffered...even so.
Shall
we not take the ebb who had the flow?
Life was our friend? Now, if it be our foe--
Dear, though it spoil and break us! --need we care
What is to come?
Let
the great winds their worst and wildest blow,
Or the gold weather round us mellow slow;
We have fulfilled ourselves, and we can dare
And we can conquer, though we may not share
In the rich quiet of the afterglow
What is to come.
--William Ernest Henley
YOU bid me try, blue-eyes, to write
A Rondeau. What! -- forthwith? -- tonight?
Reflect. Some skill I have, 'tis true;
But thirteen lines! -- and rimed on two!
"Refrain" as well. Ah, Hapless plight!
Still,
there are five lines -- ranged aright.
These Gallic bonds, I feared, would fright
My easy Muse. They did, till you --
You bid me try!
That
makes them eight. The port's in sight --
'Tis all because your eyes are bright!
Now just a pair to end in "oo" --
When maids command, what can't we do?
Behold! -- the rondeau, tasteful, light,
You bid me try!
--Austin Dobson
Rondeau [This is the title Hunt gave the poem, not a definition of it.]
Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thied, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in:
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I growing old, but add,
Jenny kissed me.
--Leigh Hunt
The following poem consists of stanzas resembling Leigh Hunt's:
Our little hour, -- how swift it flies
When poppies flare and lilies smile;
How soon the fleeting minute dies,
Leaving us but a little while
To dream our dream, to sing our song,
To pick the fruit, to pluck the flower,
The Gods -- They do not give us long, --
One little hour.
Our little hour, -- how short it is
When Love with dew-eyed loveliness
Raises her lips for ours to kiss
And dies within our first caress.
Youth flickers out like wind-blown flame,
Sweets of to-day to-morrow sour,
For Time and Death, relentless, claim
Our little hour.
Our little hour, -- how short a time
To wage our wars, to fan our hates,
To take our fill of armoured crime,
To troop our banners, storm the gates.
Blood on the sword, our eyes blood-red,
Blind in our puny reign of power,
Do we forget how soon is sped
Our little hour?
Our little hour, -- how soon it dies:
How short a time to tell our beads,
To chant our feeble Litanies,
To think sweet thoughts, to do good deeds.
The altar lights grow pale and dim,
The bells hang silent in the tower --
So passes with the dying hymn
Our little hour.
--Leslie Coulson
Swinburne succeeded in defining the roundel by writing many of them, including one self-reflexive one:
The Roundel
A
ROUNDEL is wrought as a ring or a starbright sphere,
With craft of delight and with cunning of sound unsought,
That the heart of the hearer may smile if to pleasure his ear
A roundel is wrought.
Its
jewel of music is carven of all or of aught--
Love, laughter, or mourning--remembrance of rapture or fear--
That fancy may fashion to hang in the ear of thought.
As
a bird's quick song runs round, and the hearts in us hear
Pause answer to pause, and again the same strain caught,
So moves the device whence, round as a pearl or tear,
A roundel is wrought.
--Algernon Charles Swinburne