The Sonnet-ballad
The Sonnet-ballad - form Summary
Refrain Binds Sonnet and Ballad
Brooks combines sonnet compression with ballad repetition in a thirteen-line sonnet-ballad
that closes where it begins. The tight lyric voice channels personal grief and fear about a lover at war, while the recurring opening line provides a mournful refrain that turns private loss into a communal lament. The hybrid form heightens inevitability and circularity, so the poem’s emotion feels both concentrated and insistent.
Oh mother, mother, where is happiness? They took my lover's tallness off to war, Left me lamenting. Now I cannot guess What I can use an empty heart-cup for. He won't be coming back here any more. Some day the war will end, but, oh, I knew When he went walking grandly out that door That my sweet love would have to be untrue. Would have to be untrue. Would have to court Coquettish death, whose impudent and strange Possessive arms and beauty (of a sort) Can make a hard man hesitate--and change. And he will be the one to stammer, "Yes." Oh mother, mother, where is happiness?
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