r to fit the unused rhymes
into an eight-line stanza than into a four-line envoy, especially when
the four lines are called on to sum up the thought of the whole
production and give a clever turn to it as well.

_The Rondeau_

"'In teacup times!' The style of dress
Would suit your beauty, I confess.
Belinda-like the patch you'd wear;
I picture you with powdered hair,--
You'd made a splendid shepherdess!

"And I, no doubt, could well express
Sir Plume's complete conceitedness,--
Could poise a clouded cane with care
'In teacup times.'

"The parts would fit precisely--yes:
We should achieve a huge success!
You should disdain and I despair
With quite the true Augustan air;
But ... could I love you more or less,--
'In teacup times'?"

The rondeau's difficulties lie in its two-rhyme limitation and the
handling of the refrain. This refrain either rounds the stanzas
beautifully or else plays dog in the manger with the sense. In the
common form of the rondeau it is made up of the first four syllables of
the first line and is repeated after the eighth and thirteenth lines.

A simpler form of the rondeau devised or at least introduced by Austin
Dobson is to be found in the "May Book." This gives an idea of the
rondeau's possibilities as a medium for more serious verse.

"IN ANGEL COURT

"In Angel Court the sunless air
Grows faint and sick; to left and right,
The cowering houses shrink from sight,
Huddling and hopeless, eyeless, bare.

"Misnamed, you say, for surely rare
Must be the Angel shapes that light
In Angel Court.

"Nay, the Eternities are there.
Death by the doorway stands to smite;
Life in its garrets leaps to light;
And Love has climbed the crumbling stair
In Angel Court."

Villon has varied the rondeau so as to use for a refrain a single
syllable. This form, though not so flexible as the others, has its use
and is very apt for obtaining certain effects.

_The Triolet_

In the matter of triolets Austin Dobson is again an authority, though
his experiments in this form are scarcely as successful as his ballades
and rondeaus.

"TO ROSE"

AUSTIN DOBSON

"In the school of Coquettes
Madam Rose is a scholar:
O, they fish with all nets
In the school of Coquettes!
When her brooch she forgets
'Tis to show her new collar:
In the school of Coquettes
Madam Rose is a scho