Blog No 192 I Brought You Roses a villanelle

I BROUGHT YOU ROSES... a villanelle

The villanelle is a fixed form like, for example, the Shakespearean sonnet. That means it has a fixed number of lines with a fixed rhyme scheme, although the line can vary in length from three to five feet. In the 20th century the iambic pentameter is the commonest line length- I brought you roses on a rainy day.

The word villanelle derives from the Italian villanella, referring to a rustic song or dance, and which comes from villano, meaning peasant or villein. Villano derives from the Medieval Latin villanus, meaning a "farmhand" The etymology of the word relates to the fact that the form's initial distinguishing feature was the pastoral subject. from Wikipedia

The fixed form was only codified in 19th century France and became popular in English. Subsequent to the publication of Théodore de Banville's treatise on prosody "Petit traité de poésie française" (1872), the form became popularised in England... from Wikipedia.

The form consists of six stanzas. The first five stanzas have three lines each (tercets). The last has four lines (quatrain). There is a set rhyming scheme with certain lines repeated as "refrains". Using small letters to represent rhymes (a, b) and R1 and R2 to represent repeated lines this scheme can be represented as (R1a, b, R2a) (a,b, R1a) (a,b, R2a) (a,b, R1a) (a,b, R2a) (a,b, R1a, R2a). 

 

With its repeated lines the form is well suited to subjects that are slightly "obsessive". The most famous modern example is Dylan Thomas' poem "Do not go gentle into that good night".

I BROUGHT YOU ROSES... a villanelle

I brought you roses on a rainy day

To open out their beauty to the eye.

The cold wind blew the petals all away.

A symbol for the hidden heart were they,

Where secret petals open like a sigh.

I brought you roses on a rainy day.

My words were lost and all that I would say

Was gone in ocean and the cold-wind sky.

The cold wind blew the petals all away.

The mundane wind rules sky of cloudy-gray.

Heart's flower has folded like a foolish cry.

I brought you roses on a rainy day.

O, then I knew you would no longer stay

And so forever I must pass on by.

The cold wind's blown the petals all away.

The rose has gone and now the cold winds play

About my mind where fading echoes die.

I brought you roses on a rainy day.

The cold wind blew the petals all away.