XXXII Ballades in Blue China [1885]

In Short

Andrew Lang’s XXXII Ballades in Blue China is a collection of light, polished verse modeled after strict French forms, particularly the ballade. It gathers thirty-two delicate lyrics alongside various translations and independent poems that treat subjects ranging from classical antiquity and folklore to golf, book-collecting, and the quiet beauty of the Tweed. The book has endured because of its technical dexterity, gentle wit, and the graceful way it blends scholarly nostalgia with accessible, melodic craftsmanship.

The Story

The collection opens with an invitation to set aside weightier matters and find solace in a dainty troop of thirty-two delicate ballades. The speaker immediately establishes a tone of refuge, looking back to ancient Greece with a ballade dedicated to Theocritus and the blue Sicilian sea. From these sunlit pastoral scenes, the volume shifts its gaze to the bustling anomalies of the modern world, pondering the lonely permanence of Cleopatra’s Needle standing under a London fog, and viewing human existence as a turn of Dame Fortune’s roulette wheel where lovers, saints, and poets stake their various claims.

The journey moves deeper into nocturnal shadows and folklore, invoking the midnight forest where Diana treads her way among laughing fairies and sobbing stags, before shifting to the Lowland Scotch waters of the Tweed where fishermen cast their reels near Ashiesteel. The speaker then takes on the persona of an indefatigable book-hunter rummaging through dismal stalls for rare Aldines and Elzevirs, and contemplates a mythical, storm-vexed voyage to Cythera in search of a fabled shore. Academic routines and petitions follow, alongside classical invocations to the Muse Melpomene and satirical glances at theological loopholes in a ballade against the Jesuits.

Turning from institutions to universal history, the poems lament the vanished dust of Babel, Carthage, and Corinth in a reflection on dead cities, before celebrating the earthy constants of the royal game of golf on East Fifeshires. The arc encompasses speculative anthropology through the habits of Primitive Man, autumnal castles in the air, and a longing for true wisdom found simply in a house full of books and a garden of flowers. Meditations on worldly wealth, the relentless burden of mortality where all things are dead and gone, and glimpses of ancient China precede laments for dead ladies after Villon.

The volume proceeds through old plays, aesthetic adjectives, autograph seekers, and the eternal desire for a quiet sepulchre where the hawk hovers over the bracken. The second half of the book expands into translations and independent verses, touching upon a 1783 portrait kissed by the moon, Odysseus yearning for Calypso from Ithaca, the fertile flooding of Homeric verse, and the burial of Molière. It closes with a theatrical dispute on the immortality of the soul argued by Saint Paul, the Devil, and three queens—Persephone, Hela, and Saint Lucy—before concluding with reflections on Stoker Bill in a training shipping, Bushman natural theology, the surging music of the Odyssey, and an ideal wax head in the Lille Museum.

How It Unfolds

The opening solace The collection begins by offering thirty-two delicate ballades as an antidote to care-dulled eyes and brow-perplexed scholars. These light and airy verses promise to relax frowns and abate cares through measured rhymes and quips.

The classical retreat The speaker invokes the pastoral world of Theocritus, where cicalas chirp and young lambs bleat by the blue Sicilian sea. Readers are invited to rest in this ancient retreat before turning unwilling feet back to the heat of the world.

The modern medley The poems wander through urban ironies, contrasting the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs of Cleopatra’s Needle with London mist and human ambition. Life is likened to a game of roulette where lovers, saints, and poets stake their hearts and dreams on Dame Fortune's wheel.

The folkloric shadows The collection explores nocturnal mysteries, watching Diana thread her way through the dim midnight forest while fairies dance and stags sob. This rustic magic shifts abruptly to the lowlands of the Tweed, where the speaker rejoices in the ringing reel and condemns industrial pollution.

The bibliophile's quest The relentless book-hunter is portrayed searching dismal stalls through torrid July and bitter December for rare editions despite public jeers. This obsessive search merges into meditations on dead cities whose marble and granite have crumbled into mould.

The game and the earth The speaker praises the outdoor virtues of golf on East Fifeshires, advising players to always be up on the green. Alongside this practical wisdom, the poems survey the habits of Primitive Man and the quiet sanctuary found in a house full of books and a garden of flowers.

The universal burden A somber refrain runs through the middle pages, reminding maids, priests, and kings that all human striving ends in the dead and gone. Villon’s ballades reinforce this worldly counsel, pointing toward taverns, lasses, and the snows of yesteryear.

The final visions The concluding section gathers translations and deep reflections, featuring a theological debate on immortality on Mount Gerizim and the enduring surge of the Odyssey. The book ends with an ideal medieval and classical face preserved in wax, capturing a timeless aesthetic grace.

The People

Andrew Lang populates his verse with historical figures, literary archetypes, and mythological entities rather than traditional novelistic characters. The speaker throughout is a contemplative scholar and book-lover who wants escape from modern noise and seeks refuge in literature, art, and nature. Figures like Theocritus stand for the eternal pastoral spirit, wanting to restore pleasant years and rustic lore while facing the inevitable return to the modern world. The book-hunter wants rare Aldines and Elzevirs, letting public jeers and cold weather roll off him while he pries into dismal nooks, though the fabled treasures ultimately escape him to rest on rich men's shelves.

Mythological figures like Diana want the solitary thrill of the chase, moving tall and white through the forest with zero ruth or pity for the fleeing stags. Saint Paul and the Devil engage in a fierce dispute over the immortality of the soul, with Paul wanting to prove eternal life through the sprouting corn-seed while the Devil tries to reduce all things to dust, only to be refuted by Persephone, Hela, and Saint Lucy. Odysseus appears as a weary wanderer who, even after gaining his haven in Ithaca, finds his sad heart following after Calypso and the magic wile of a fair forsaken place. Finally, the unnamed subjects of the verse—ranging from the aesthetic poet demanding intensity to Stoker Bill sitting in a Persian rug on a training shipping—each pursue their own particular illusions before facing the common lot.

In Its Own Voice

Behold a solace to your fate, Wrapped in this cover’s china blue; These ballades fresh and delicate, This dainty troop of Thirty-two!

The opening poem sets the amiable, self-aware tone of the collection, introducing the verses as a physical and mental refuge.

What king may deem him more than man, What priest says Faith can Time resist While this endures to mark their span— This monument in London mist?

The ballade of Cleopatra’s Needle meditates on the relative fragility of human institutions against the silent endurance of ancient stone.

The stone endures though gods be numb; Though human effort, plot, and plan Be sifted, drifted, like the sum Of sands in wastes Arabian.

This stanza captures the underlying melancholy of vanished empires contrasted with the persistent markers left behind by history.

There is an end of grief and mirth, There is an end of all things born, And if ye sow into the earth A seed, ye shall have corn;

The Devil argues for total annihilation during the theological debate on Mount Gerizim, challenging Saint Paul's doctrine of immortality.

What It's Really About

The collection explores the tension between the exhausting haste of modern life and the enduring solace found in art, history, and nature. It asks what survives the wreck of time, weighing the permanence of monuments, rare books, and classical poetry against the universal decay of human cities and empires. Beneath its playful rhymes and strict metrical constraints, the book examines the human impulse to escape the fever and fret of daily existence—whether through scholarship, sport, folklore, or aesthetic intensity. It questions the meaning of progress by juxtaposing primitive origins with modern trivialities, ultimately arguing that wisdom lies in cultivating small, beautiful enclosures of the mind: a house full of books, a garden of flowers, and the timeless music of past singers.

Why Read It Today

Readers who love formal verse, light wit, and classical allusion will find immense pleasure in Lang's technical mastery and erudite charm. Reading the collection feels like browsing through the quiet study of an amiable nineteenth-century scholar who wears his learning lightly, alternating between melancholy reflections on mortality and cheerful bouts of satire. What stays with you is the melodic cadence of the refrains—the haunting questions about dead cities, dead ladies, and the blue Sicilian sea. Modern readers should be prepared for period references, occasional Scots dialect in the golfing and fishing pieces, and nineteenth-century aesthetic conventions that require a bit of patience. Yet these very elements provide an authentic window into a distinct intellectual world, making the journey through these thirty-two ballades and their companion verses a rewarding and restorative experience.