liberty! The _triolet_ now--how deliriously impertinent it is! Is it
not?"

Walter knew nothing about the old French modes of versifying; and,
unwilling to place himself at a disadvantage, made an evasive reply, and
went. But when at length he reached home, it was with several ancient
volumes, among the rest "Clement Marot," in pockets and hands. Ere an
hour was over, he was in delight with the variety of dainty modes in
which, by shape and sound, a very pretty French something was carved out
of nothing at all. Their fantastic surprises, the ring of their
bell-like returns upon themselves, their music of triangle and cymbal,
gave him quite a new pleasure. In some of them poetry seemed to approach
the nearest possible to bird-song--to unconscious seeming through most
conscious art, imitating the carelessness and impromptu of warblings as
old as the existence of birds, and as new as every fresh individual joy;
for each new generation grows its own feathers, and sings its own song,
yet always the feathers of its kind, and the song of its kind.

The same night he sent her the following _triolet_

Oh, why is the moon
Awake when thou sleepest?
To the nightingale's tune,
Why is the moon
Making a noon,
When night is the deepest
Why is the moon
Awake when thou sleepest?

In the evening came a little note, with a coronet on the paper, but