Ballades & Rhymes from Ballades in Blue China and Rhymes a La Mode

Andrew Lang, the great Victorian collector of fairy tales, reveals here a more intimate artistic voice. These ballades and rhymes demonstrate his devotion to the musical possibilities of formal verse, with the collection's title evoking those delicate blue china pieces that embodied the aesthetic movement's worship of beautiful objects. Lang writes with graceful erudition, weaving classical allusions into verses that sing of love, nature, memory, and the small pleasures of existence. The ballade form itself becomes a kind of porcelain vessel, holding these small perfect moments. There is wit here too, but of the gentler variety - a scholar's amusement at human follies and the absurdity lurking in noble pursuits. These are not poems of darkness or deep existential crisis; they are poems of light, meant to be read in quiet moments, perhaps with tea beside a window.