The CAROL is a joyous hymn of no particular pattern lately, but it originally had a more-or-less set form that consisted of a two-line burden or texte couplet that rhymed A1A2 (the superscripts indicate the fact that these are different refrains that rhyme with one another), and any number of quatrain stanzas rhyming bbba (or c or A1 or A2 ), ccca (or d or A1 or A2 ), etc. The last lines of these stanzas rhyme with the burden, or they echo or repeat one or the other of the burden lines. Usually the meter is short, trimeter / tripodic or tetrameter / tetrapodic, with no set verse foot, though whatever meter is chosen (if it is written in accentual-syllabic prosody) would be a running meter — that is, the lines would all be of the same length. The Christmas carol in France is called the noël. This poem, from the anonymous Middle English, has been regularized to fit the original form by Wesli Court:
THE SHEPHERDS' CAROL
Terly terlow, terly terlow,
Merry the shepherds began to blow!
About the field they piped full right,
Round about the dark midnight,
When down from Heaven there came a light,
Terly terlow, terly terlow!
Of angels there came a company
With merry songs and melody;
The shepherds anon did them espy —
Merry the shepherds began to blow!
"Gloria in Excelsis!" the angels sung
And said that peace was come among
Everyman that to the faith clung,
Terly terlow, terly terlow!
The shepherds betook them to Bethlehem
To see that blessed sun abeam,
And there they found that glorious stream —
Merry the shepherds began to blow!
Now do we pray to that meek child
And to his mother that is so mild,
Never sullied, undefiled —
Terly terlow, terly terlow!
Terly terlow, terly terlow!
Merry the shepherds began to blow!
— Anonymous
Here are two other Medieval poems in the same form; these modern versions are also by Wesli Court:
WOMANSONGS
I.
I am as light as any roe
To praise women where I may go.
To dispraise women were a shame,
For a woman way thy dame;
Our Blessed Lady bears the name
Of all women where they may go.
A woman is a worthy thing —
She does the wash and ironing'
"Lullay, lullay," does she sing,
And yet she has but care and woe.
A woman is a worthy wight;
She serves a man both day and night:
Thereto she strives with all her might,
And yet she has but care and woe —
I am as light as any roe
To praise women where I may go.
— Anonymous
II.
Welladay! There is no cease:
I dare not sigh when she says, "Peace!"
Young men, I warn you every one,
Old wives take to ye never none!
For I myself have one at home —
I dare not sigh when she says, "Peace!"
When I come from the plow at noon,
In a broken dish my meat is done;
I dare not ask of my dame a spoon —
I dare not sigh when she says, "Peace!"
And if I ask my dame for bread,
She takes a staff, she breaks my head,
And runs me underneath the bed —
I dare not sigh when she says, "Peace!"
Welladay! There is no cease:
I dare not sigh when she says, "Peace!"
— Anonymous
" The Shepherds’ Carol," modern version of an anonymous Medieval poem by Lewis Turco, image by George O’Connell, was originally published as a Christmas card by Grey Heron / Mathom of Oswego, New York, in 1995. “Womansongs" by two anonymous Middle English authors appeared originally in The Hollins Critic, xxi:1, Feb. 1984. All three poems were gathered in The Collected Lyrics of Lewis Turco / Wesli Court 1953-2004, Scottsdale, AZ: www.StarCloudPress.com, 2004.
The Collected Lyrics of Lewis Turco / Wesli Court 1953-2004, Scottsdale, AZ: www.StarCloudPress.com, 2004, 460 pp., ISBN 1-932842-00-4, jacketed cloth; ISBN 1-932842-01-2, trade paperback. Also available from Amazon.com in a Kindle edition.
Another Medieval Xmas carol, “Christmas Day,” with an illustration by Christopher Cameron Turco, has been published this season on my other blog, “Poetics and Ruminations.” I tampered a bit with the ending.
The CAROL SONNET is a quatorzain amalgam of the two ancient forms of its title — the carol and the sonnet — plus a recent one, the blues stanza. It consists of four triplet stanzas of iambic pentameter verse, plus a two-line texte, all of which are incremental refrains turning on only one rhyme:
A1A1A2
A3A3A4
A5A5A2
A6A6A4
A2A4
Listen to Lewis Turco read his poem "The Falcon Carol":
Upon the currents of air the raptors fly,
Upon the soaring updrafts the raptors fly —
The call of the winter is the falcon's cry.
Upon the plain the beasts of burden lie,
Out on the grassland the beasts of burden lie.
The secret snow falls out of the silent sky
Onto an inn, a stable and a sty,
Onto the stable standing beside a sty.
The call of the winter is the falcon's cry.
The star stands shining like a glittering eye
Above the stable, gleams like a glittering eye
While secret snow falls out of the silent sky.
The call of the winter is the falcon's cry.
The secret snow falls out of the silent sky.
— Lewis Turco
“The Falcon Carol” was originally published as a Christmas card in 1996 by Gray Heron Press of Oswego, New York. The poem by Lewis Turco was illustrated with a relief print by George O’Connell, 17 x 12 cm; it has been reprinted in Handmade-Holiday-Cards-20th-Century-Artists ed. Mary Savig from the Collections of the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2012, p. 135. It was collected in The Gathering of the Elders and Other Poems by “Wesli Court,” a.k.a. Lewis Turco, Scottsdale, AZ: www.StarCloudPress.com, 2010, ISBN 978-1-932842-43-2, trade paperback, 115 pp.
SUGGESTED WRITING EXERCISE:
Write either a carol or a carol sonnet.
