The Swinburne

• The Swinburne is a stanzaic form patterned after Before the Mirror by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909).
  
  The Swinburne is:
• stanzaic, written in any number of septets.
• metric, L1,L3,L5, & L6 are trimeter, L2 & L4 are dimeter, and L7 is pentameter.
• rhymed ababccb dedeffe etc, L1 & L3 have feminine or falling rhyme.
  
  
Pasted from  http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=668


This named form was documented by Judi Van Gorder, on her most wonderful resource site: Poetry Manum Opus, in a section about poetry form named after English poets.


Note: In addition to the specifications above, it is also required that the sixth syllable in Line 7 rhyme with lines 5 and 6.



Before the Mirror
I.
WHITE ROSE in red rose-garden
Is not so white;
Snowdrops that plead for pardon
And pine for fright
Because the hard East blows
Over their maiden rows
Grow not as this face grows from pale to bright.


Behind the veil, forbidden,
Shut up from sight,
Love, is there sorrow hidden,
Is there delight?
Is joy thy dower or grief,
White rose of weary leaf,
Late rose whose life is brief, whose loves are light?


Soft snows that hard winds harden
Till each flake bite
Fill all the flowerless garden
Whose flowers took flight
Long since when summer ceased,
And men rose up from feast,
And warm west wind grew east, and warm day night.


II.
“Come snow, come wind or thunder
High up in air,
I watch my face, and wonder
At my bright hair;
Nought else exalts or grieves
The rose at heart, that heaves
With love of her own leaves and lips that pair.


“She knows not loves that kissed her
She knows not where.
Art thou the ghost, my sister,
White sister there,
Am I the ghost, who knows?
My hand, a fallen rose,
Lies snow-white on white snows, and takes no care.


“I cannot see what pleasures
Or what pains were;
What pale new loves and treasures
New years will bear;
What beam will fall, what shower,
What grief or joy for dower;
But one thing knows the flower; the flower is fair.”


III.
Glad, but not flushed with gladness,
Since joys go by;
Sad, but not bent with sadness,
Since sorrows die;
Deep in the gleaming glass
She sees all past things pass,
And all sweet life that was lie down and lie.


There glowing ghosts of flowers
Draw down, draw nigh;
And wings of swift spent hours
Take flight and fly;
She sees by formless gleams,
She hears across cold streams,
Dead mouths of many dreams that sing and sigh.


Face fallen and white throat lifted,
With sleepless eye
She sees old loves that drifted,
She knew not why,
Old loves and faded fears
Float down a stream that hears
The flowing of all men’s tears beneath the sky. 

Algernon Charles Swinburne


Pasted from <http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/before-the-mirror-2/>


Example poem


Caretaker      (The Swinburne)

























When forced to go and going
with all due haste,
you leave already knowing
there must be waste.
I never, as a boy
expected old man's joy
at seeing an old toy I had misplaced.


The things you leave behind you
are not all done.
They're simply tasks assigned to
another one.
When your life takes a turn
the habits you adjourn
may tickle Time who spurns a lack of fun.


© Lawrencealot - May 8, 2014




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Curtal Long Hymnal Stanza

Curtal Long Hymnal Stanza

Type:	Structure, Metrical Requirement, Rhyme Scheme Requirement, Stanzaic
Description:	A stanzaic form composed of three lines of iambic tetrameter and one of iambic dimeter rhymed abab.
Schematic:	xX xX xX xA xX xX xX xB xX xX xX xA xX xB

Pasted from <http://www.poetrybase.info/forms/000/63.shtml>

My Thanks to Charles L. Weatherford for the wonderful PoetryBase resource.

My Example Poem

My All   (Curtal Long Hymnal Stanza)

I must now be

in total thrall;

demand from me

my all.

I'll give no less,

for when inspired

I know my best's

required.

And if I fail

the lack's my own.

I'll guzzle ale

alone.

© Lawrencealot - April 30, 2014

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Cyrch a Chwta

Cyrch a Chwta

Type:	Structure, Metrical Requirement, Rhyme Scheme Requirement, Stanzaic
Description:	(kirch a choota) An octave of seven-syllable lines rhymed aaaaaaba with cross-rhyme of b in the third, fourth, or fifth syllable of line 8.
Origin:	Welsh
Schematic:	Rhyme: aaaaaaba Meter: xxxxxxx xxxxxxa xxxxxxa xxxxxxa xxxxxxa xxxxxxa xxxxxxa xxxxxxb xxbxxxa or xxxbxxa or xxxxbxa
Rhythm/Stanza Length:	8

Pasted from <http://www.poetrybase.info/forms/000/69.shtml>

My thanks to Charles L. Weatherford for his fine Poetrybase resource.

Example Poem

My Tree     (Cyrch a Chwta)

My dad went to war, but he

took time first to plant a tree

when I was a baby, wee.

Dad never came back to me,

he perished when I was three.

I learned of him at mom's knee

That tree gave shade, let me swing.

That's something dad knew would be.

© Lawrencealot - April 24, 2014

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Long Octave

Long Octave

Type:	Structure, Metrical Requirement, Rhyme Scheme Requirement, Stanzaic
Description:	An octave of iambic tetrameter with rhyme scheme abcbabcb.
Schematic:	Line rhythm: xX xX xX xX Rhyme scheme: abcbabcb
Rhythm/Stanza Length:	8
See Also:	Common Measure, Common Octave, Long Measure, Octave
Status:	Incomplete

Pasted from <http://www.poetrybase.info/forms/001/172.shtml>

My thanks to Charles L. Weatherford for his fine Poetrybase resource.

Example poem

Recruiting      (Long Octave)

When Maude and I were at the park

just chatting calmly on a bench,

two half-dressed trollops happened by

(I think perhaps that they were French),

it wasn't close to getting dark.

They asked, "We've many thirsts to quench.

and one's a friendly older guy;

would you take care of him by chance?"

© Lawrencealot - April 21, 2014

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Brace Octave

Brace Octave

Type:	Structure, Rhyme Scheme Requirement, Stanzaic
Description:	An eight-line stanzaic form with rhyme of abbaabba or abbacddc. No requirements on meter or length. The Italian octave is a subgenre of this.
Origin:	English
Schematic:	abbaabba or abbacddc
Rhythm/Stanza Length:	8
See Also:	Envelope Verse, In Memorium Stanza, Italian Octave
Status:	Incomplete

Pasted from <http://www.poetrybase.info/forms/000/24.shtml>

My thanks to Charles L. Weatherford for his fine Poetrybase resource.

Brace Octave ------------------------------------------

The Brace Octave has its roots in music. The brace is the wavey symbol that joins 2 staffs of music, indicating that both scores are played simultaneously. The verse form referred to as the Brace Octave is a lyrical blend of meter and rhyme, the rhyme scheme almost taking the shape of the brace. It could even be said that the octave itself acts as a brace joining two envelope quatrains.

The Brace Octave is:

• stanzaic, written in any number of octaves (8 lines) made up of 2 envelope quatrains. When writing more than one octave, even numbered stanzas grouped in twos seems to fit best with the venue of the form.
• metric, iambic tetrameter. Some sources indicate no meter necessary but given the musical nature of the verse, it seems to me measured lines are appropriate if not a prerequisite. The best known poem utilizing the Brace Octave is Two Songs from a Play by W.B. Yeats which is written in iambic tetrameter so I guess Mr. Yeats agrees with me.
• rhymed, with an envelope rhyme scheme abbacddc (see it does sort of look like a brace lying down.)
  Here is William Butler Yeats' poem which was published in his book The Towerin 1928. There is a footnote from Yeats "These songs were sung by musicians in my play Resurrection."
  

Two Songs from a Play by William Butler Yeats

I

I saw a staring virgin stand

Where holy Dionysus died,

And tear the heart out of his side.

And lay the heart upon her hand

And bear that beating heart away;

Of Magnus Annus at the spring,

And then did all the Muses sing

As though God's death were but a play. 

Another Troy must rise and set,

Another lineage feed the crow,

Another Argo's painted prow

Drive to a flashier bauble yet.

The Roman Empire stood appalled:

It dropped the reins of peace and war

When that fierce virgin and her Star

Out of the fabulous darkness called.

II

In pity for man's darkening thought

He walked that room and issued thence

In Galilean turbulence;

The Babylonian starlight brought

A fabulous, formless darkness in;

Odour of blood when Christ was slain

Made all platonic tolerance vain

And vain all Doric discipline.

Everything that man esteems

Endures a moment or a day.

Love's pleasure drives his love away,

The painter's brush consumes his dreams;

The herald's cry, the soldier's tread

Exhaust his glory and his might:

Whatever flames upon the night

Man's own resinous heart has fed.

Pasted from <http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?/topic/662-brace-octave/>

My thanks to Judy Van Gorder from PMO for the above.  I

 tend to agree with her conceptually about the meter and line length, but many do not.  Below is a poem that strays from isosyllabic lines and abandons consistent meter.

~Love Is Not Just  A State Of Mind~ 

(Brace Octave) 

Love is a very beautiful feeling 

Can make you sappy or happy 

And at times can give you  healing 

Sometimes makes us so unhappy 

You reach the stars or hit the ceiling 

Emotions makes us  sad or happy 

Love is not just a state of mind 

For in your heart love you can find 

Dorian Petersen Potter 

aka ladydp2000 

copyright@2011 

Pasted from <http://poetrypoem.com/cgi-bin/index.pl?poemnumber=1097675&sitename=ladydp2000&poemoffset=64&displaypoem=t&item=poetry>

My example poem

Short Shrift    (Brace Octave)

I tell ya friend

it's quite okay

to write this way

or else append

sounds to extend

the word array

with more to say

from start to end.

© Lawrencealot - April 20, 2014

Although I do believe that more pleasant poetry results from utilizing meter and a consistent line length of iambic tetrameter or longer, I have to allow any octave using envelope rhyme to  tagged with this name.

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Streambed's Ripple

Streambed's Ripple a form created by Lillibet known on Allpoetry as Streambed.

It is:

Stanzaic: Written in 3 ten line stanzas

Syllabic: 10/8/10/8/10/10/10/8/10/8

Refrain:  Requires the last half of L5 to repeat in each stanza

Rhymed: xaxaBbxaxa xcxcBbxcxc xdxdBbxdxd

Metric: Written in iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter

Example poem

Love's Corset     (Streambed's Ripple)

For centuries we have believed

the attributes of form

as they relate to motherhood

ought be considered norm.

So bind yourself with stays and lace

before you paint or rouge your face.

For parturition hips must be

expanded, round and warm.

The breasts to suckle one or more

are ample to conform.

A standard then however wrought

in western cultures seem

to drive the fashion engines to

promote this female scheme.

So women then with stays and lace

constrict themselves so men will chase.

But girls have found and boys have too

that essence reigns supreme,

and being kind and being true

is what will fuel love's dream.

Once one is found to share your heart,

then regulate your mind

and recognize that devotion

provides the stays that bind.

I'll bind my love with stays and lace

to make sure romance stays in place

and corset non-complying thoughts

and set them far behind.

For nothing fits the human soul

like lovers so aligned.

© Lawrencealot - April 19, 2014

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Bref Double

Bref Double

Type:	Structure, Rhyme Scheme Requirement, Isosyllabic
Description:	A fourteen-line French form. Like many French forms, the rules are a bit complex. It is composed of three quatrains and a couplet, all isosyllabic. It has three rhymes: a, b, and c. It has five lines that are not part of the rhyme scheme. The c rhyme ends each quatrain. The a and b rhymes are found twice each somewhere within the three quatrains and once in the couplet.
Impressions:	Have fun; it's French.
Origin:	French
Schematic:	Some sample rhyme schemes would be: abxc abxc xxxc ab, xaxc xbxc xbac ba, xabc xaxc xbxc ab, etc.
Rhythm/Stanza Length:	4
Line/Poem Length:	14

Pasted from <http://www.poetrybase.info/forms/000/25.shtml>

My thanks to Charles L. Weatherford for his fine Poetrybase resource.

My example poem

A Merchant Mariner     (Bref Double)

A soliloquy mumbled while aboard a ship

addressed issues encountered by conscripted men:

the comforts found in surroundings I'd known, no thoughts

of danger real or imagined- not everyday.

With thoughts of carnality, adventure, hardship,

rewards of sharing bounty, succeeding and then

returning home after I've traveled, unraveled

the wonderful mystr'ies that might hold me in sway.

The captain, querulous, demands most constant yield

from every man. The old first  mate so hates the king

he wrings more than mere duty from men on his watch.

The nation we're helping will repay us some day.

I came home a hero. It was quite a long trip.

But now that those days are passed, I'd do it again.

© Lawrencealot - April 18, 2014

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Sapphic Stanza

The Sapphic Stanza is classic Aeolic verse and attributed to the poetess Sappho 6 BC, Greece. Plato so admired her that he spoke of her not as lyricist, poet but called her the 10th Muse. Her poems spoke of relationships and were marked by emotion. In a male dominated era she schooled and mentored women artists on the island of Lesbos and her writing has often been equated with woman-love. "Rather than addressing the gods or recounting epic narratives such as those of Homer, Sappho's verses speak from one individual to another." NPOPP. 

Sappho's work has often been referred to as fragments, because only two of her poems have survived in whole with the vast majority of her work surviving in fragments either from neglect, natural disasters, or possible censorship.

Sapphic Stanza is:

• quantitative verse, measuring long / short vowels. In English we transition to metric measure of stress / unstressed syllables which warps the rhythm a bit but brings it into context the English ear can hear. L= long s = short
• stanzaic, written in any number of quatrains. This evolved to a quatrain during the Renaissance period from the ancient variable 3 to 4 line stanzas. The quatrain is made up of 3 Sapphic lines followed by an Adonic line which is usually written as a parallel to L3.
  Sapphic line = 11 syllables, trochaic with the central foot being a dactyl
  Adonic line = 5 syllables, a dactyl followed by a trochee
  (see below for more detail on these two components)
• The modern Sapphic scansion should look like this (Stressed or Long = L; unstressed or short = s )
  Quantitative Verse (L=long syllable * s=short syllable)
  Ls-Ls-Lss-Ls-Ls
  Ls-Ls-Lss-Ls-Ls
  Ls-Ls-Lss-Ls-Ls
  Lss-Ls
  
  with substituted spondee
  Ls-Ls-Lss-Ls-LL
  Ls-Ls-Lss-Ls-LL
  Ls-Ls-Lss-Ls-LL
  Lss-Ls
• originally unrhymed, in the Middle Ages the stanza acquired rhyme, rhyme scheme abab. Because of the predominant use of trochee and dactyls the rhyme will generally be feminine or a 2 syllable rhyme with the last syllable unstressed.

• Adonic line is most often written as a parallel to a previous line. It is the last line of the Sapphic stanza. It is composed in 5 syllables, a dactyl followed by a trochee. It can also be found as a pattern for the refrain in song to honor Adonis, from which it derived its name.
  "death has come near me."
  last line of Like the gods
  . . . by Sappho 4th century BC
  edited by Richmond Lattimore
  Quantitative Verse
  Lss-Ls
  Meaningless prattle. ---jvg

• Sapphic line -Since the Renaissance period the Sapphic line has been recognized as being a 5 foot trochaic line with the central foot being a dactyl. Prior to the Renaissance period this 11 syllable trochaic pattern was known as the "lesser" Sapphic line and the Sapphic line was a combination of the lesser Sapphic line and an adonic line.
  
  After Renaissance Sapphic line Ls-Ls-Lss-Ls-Ls : Passion, lust, consumed our beginnings fully.
  Prior to Renaissance Sapphic line Ls-Ls-Lss-Ls-Ls,- Lss Ls : greed to love? It happened deceptively, tricking emotions.
  Apparently, the technical terms of "lesser" Sapphic and Sapphic lines have been corrupted over time.

Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=1240#adonic

My Thanks to Judi Van Gorder for the wonderful resource at PMO

I am restating the specifications for the 21st century English writing poets, knowing full well that academicians may insist we have corrupted Sappho's use of long and short vowel sounds.  A real poet might strive to make those sounds and the syllabic accents coincide, then none can argue.

A Sapphic Stanza is:

Stanzaic, consisting of any number of quatrains.

Syllabic, each stanza consisting 3 Sapphic Lines plus a Adonic line.

Metrical.  The Sapphic lines being trochaic with the central foot being a dactyl (11 syllables), and

          The Adonic lines being a dactyl followed by a trochee (5 syllables)

Rhymed, the pattern being abab.

Example Poem

Quantitative Verse       (Sapphic Stanza)

Seek out passion, write of the trials that poets

face, with no complaint but with guidance, using

items neither trite nor near dying, so it's

true and amusing.

© Lawrencealot - April 17, 2014

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In this example I have tried to make each accented syllable also use an English long vowel sound.

Zejel

Zejel

The zejel is a Spanish form which my Spanish friends have not heard of. They tell me though that it is pronounced the-hell, with the stress on the second syllable. (How the hell do they know?)

My example in this form is about how men can't help thinking about sex. I hope this doesn't offend anyone, and get me a reputation as a male chauvinist pig. As I'm always saying, the opinions expressed in the poem are not necessarily those of the poet himself. (See also my Masefield parody.) 

I checked on the web how many times a day men are reputed to think about sex. The consensus seemed to be that it was about 200. The lowest figure came from the Ladies Home Journal, which said "4 or 5". The highest came from the film Simply Irresistible, which says 278 - apparently it uses this as a running gag. (One site actually topped this with a claim of "every 8 seconds", which works out at 450 times an hour, but I think that writer may have been shooting from the hip, as it were.)

Anyway, here's the poem: 

Proposition

Mostly, sex tops men’s agenda.

I’m not one to buck the trend - a

Red-blooded repeat offender.

Hurrying for the morning train,

Spirit not damped by teeming rain,

There’s only one thing on my brain:

All the time I think of gender.

At the office, deep in filing,

Boredom on frustration piling,

Even then, a woman smiling

Makes me feel all warm and tender.

Are you female and eighteen plus?

A good sport and adventurous?

We have a great deal to discuss.

Come back to my hacienda!

The first stanza, known as the mudanza, has three lines, rhyming aaa. All the other stanzas - as many of them as you like - have 4 lines, rhyming bbba, the a rhyme harking back to the first stanza. So the overall rhyming scheme for the poem is aaa/bbba/ccca/ddda/...

Colloquial language tends to be used, and 8-syllable lines are usual (though not obligatory), so that's what I've used here. I have interpreted the term "8-syllable line" to mean "a line with 8 syllables", and I suggest that you should do the same. However, in Spanish poetry syllable-counting works differently, and the term "8-syllable line" is liable to be interpreted as "a line in which the last stressed syllable is the seventh"; such a line might have 7 syllables, or 8, or 9, or even more. (I wonder whether the Spanish write haiku?)Pasted from <http://volecentral.co.uk/vf/zejel.htm>

Thanks to Bob Newman for his wonderful Volecentral resource site.

Example Poem

Toothless Smile      (Zejel)

The tortoise lived out on a heath

with only sage to hide beneath

his home he never could bequeath.

While I am taxed for my household

and pay and pay until I'm old,

and shall until I'm dead and cold

and I'm ensconced beneath a wreath.

My brilliant smile was once okay,

before my teeth all went away;

my progeny will have to say,

"He kept his house but lost his teeth."

© Lawrencealot - April 16, 2014

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Meisenheimer's Sestet

This form was created by Glenn Meisenheimer, aka gmcookie on Allpoetry.

It is stanzaic consisting of two or more stanzas.

It is syllabic, each stanza being a sestet of 11/8/11/11/11/8 syllables.

It is metrical, with the long lines consisting of three anapestic feet and an iamb, and each short line consisting of two anapestic feet and an iamb.

Rhyme pattern:  xabbba

My Example

April 7th Phone Call     (Meisenheimer's Sestet)

And what was the promise that went unfulfilled,

and why did it happen like that?

You promised to cherish, to love and obey

I promised the same yet you left me one day

and none of my pleas could persuade you to stay

so home with my two boys I sat.

But one time you tried to rejoin me and them;

by then I was slightly involved.

I'd promised another to be her escort

one day to a wedding as symbol of sorts.

I'd told you I'd promised and could not abort-

one day! then the problem'd be solved.

One day was too much for your too needy heart

I think you’d expected I'd stay

and forget a promise for now things were changed.

I couldn't and wouldn't get things rearranged

so after a month we were newly estranged.

You took our girls; you went away.

And what was the promise that went unfulfilled,

that caused you to call me last night?

You're dying and know it and facing the end,

have mem'ries to reckon with, fences to mend.

You know I still love you and think you my friend.

I wish that could make it alright.

© Lawrencealot - April 8, 2014

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