— 35 —
Lost love—labour and lullaby
And lowly let love lie,
where the sense has been sacrificed to the melody of sound.
Very interesting is the use Rossetti makes of the repetition of the same phrase or line; by using these lines at regular intervals they form a kind of chorus to his poems, and remind the reader continually of the mood which forms the back-ground of the poetical image. The most striking example is his poem "Troy Town",[1] where the too frequent repetition of the same words is almost monotonous. The poem opens with the following stanza:
"Heaven-born Helen, Sparta's queen,
(O Troy Town!)
Had two breasts of heavenly sheen.
The sun and moon of the heart's desire:
All Love's Lordship lay between.
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire.)"
In fourteen stanzas the refrain "O Troy Town! Troy's down, Tall Troy's on fire!" besides the last word of the third line "heart's desire" are repeated exactly in the same place, and we feel that we have too much of a good thing. Far happier the repetition of the same words has been applied in the ballad "Sister Helen";[2] the refrain shows slight changes in accordance with the thoughts expressed in the stanza concerned; here the constant tragic appeal to the holy virgin heightens the dramatic force of the poem. I will quote the first and last stanzas of this ballad, which illustrates a well-known superstition of the middle-ages and tells the story of a deceived bride who avenges herself on her unfaithful lover by making a wax-image of him which she burns and the melting of which causes the death of the deceiver. The events are told in the form of a dialogue between the bride and her little brother.
