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

"Ballades & Rhymes from Ballades in Blue China and Rhymes à la Mode" by Andrew Lang is a collection of poems from the early 1900s that uses ballades, which are like songs, along with fun rhymes to think about nature, love, what’s smart, and how time goes by. The book shows off how pretty words can be and how poems used to be written, and it also looks at feelings and life in a way that's both playful and deep. The collection starts by teaching readers about the style and mood of Lang's poems, and talks about how ballades came back into fashion in England. The first poem is like a friendly invitation to find peace and happiness in the words. It's like a group of ballades is there to make life's problems smaller. As the book opens up, readers see hints of the different things the poems will be about, like pretty old blue china, the fun of writing poems, and looking back at memories, all mixed together with lots of rhyming.