Dizain

Summary: Two accepted forms:

Eight lines:    Rhyming  a - b - a - b - c - d - c - d

or Ten Lines:  Rhyming  a - b - a - b - b - c - c - d - c - d

METER:  Not required; Classic meter customary.

A French form popular in the 15th and 16th centuries, it is a single 

stanza of 8 or 10 lines (10 being more common), with 8 or 10 syllables 

in each line (each line being of the same length). A classic meter is 

normally used, e.g. iambic pentameter. 

The rhyme scheme is ababcdcd, or ababbccdcd.

Below is an 8 stanza iambic tetrameter example.

Example Poem

Nighttime Magic

Dark dandy finely cloaked does walk

with daunting cold disdain for some

at night presuming he can shock

and render still those thieves so dumb

as to try force against this man.

His staff benevolent, it's said,

in daytime will foil nighttime plan

against him;  leaving fools quite dead.

© Lawrencealot - April 2, 2012

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