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Explore the Craft of Writing Poetry English Verse The Caudate or Tail Rhymed Stanza was a popular stanzaic form in 12th-14th century England. Variations also can be found in France in the form of the Rime Couée and Scotland in the Burns Stanza. Tail Rhymed Stanza simply refers to a stanza from 6 or 12 lines long with 1 or 2 short lines that carry the same rhyme. The elements of the Caudate or Tail Rhymed Stanza are: stanzaic, most often written in any number of sixains but the stanzas could be 12 lines each. metered, often accentual with longer lines or 4 stresses and one or two lines of only 2 stresses. The lines are also found written in trochaic or iambic tetrameter with one or two lines dimeter. The shorter lines are most commonly in L3,L6,L9 & L12 but can be found in different arrangements as in the Burns Stanza rhymed, the most common schemes are aabaab or aabccb with L2 & L6 being the shorter lines. In a 12 line stanza common schemes are aabccbddbeeb or aabaabaabaab with L3,L6,L9 & L12 being the shorter lines. Rural Architecture by William Wordsworth 1801 THERE'S George Fisher, Charles Fleming, and Reginald Shore, Three rosy-cheeked school-boys, the highest not more Than the height of a counsellor's bag; To the top of GREAT HOW did it please them to climb: And there they built up, without mortar or lime, A Man on the peak of the crag. They built him of stones gathered up as they lay: They built him and christened him all in one day, An urchin both vigorous and hale; And so without scruple they called him Ralph Jones. Now Ralph is renowned for the length of his bones; The Magog of Legberthwaite dale. Just half a week after, the wind sallied forth, And, in anger or merriment, out of the north, Coming on with a terrible pother, From the peak of the crag blew the giant away. And what did these school-boys?--The very next day They went and they built up another. --Some little I've seen of blind boisterous works By Christian disturbers more savage than Turks, Spirits busy to do and undo: At remembrance whereof my blood sometimes will flag; Then, light-hearted Boys, to the top of the crag! And I'll build up giant with you.

Explore the Craft of Writing Poetry The Sonnet Sonnet Comparison Chart English Verse English poet, William Wordsworth (1770-1850) is credited with being the leader of the romance movement in England. He sometimes wrote his poems in a series focused on a period of history or cultural event, often in sonnets. His Ecclesiastic Sonnets which chronicle the schism between the Catholic Church and the Church of England are typical of his endeavors. Most of his sonnets were written in the Petrarchan or Italian Sonnet form. However, there is one sonnet in which he created his own rhyme scheme, the criteria of which ultimately became known as the Wordsworth Sonnet. It is a sonnet about sonnets and appears to be a variation of the Petrarchan frame, with a little different rhyme. But where the Petrarchan sonnet makes its turn from conflict to solution between the octave and the sestet, this sonnet seems to pivot in the very last line. From the second line on, it becomes a kind of Catalogue poem or Blason making its case for the acceptance of the sonnet form. The octave-sestet structure is evident in the rhyme scheme but in fact L8 is enjambed and there really is no separation of thought from octave to sestet. It is a list of reason after reason why the sonnet is well deserved and in the last line there is a change of tone from praise to grief because there are too few. The elements of the Wordsworth Sonnet are: a quatorzain. Looking at the rhyme scheme only, one could say the quatorzain is made up of an octave of 2 envelope quatrains, an alternating rhyme quatrain and a rhymed couplet in that order. metered, iambic pentameter. rhymed abbaacca dede ff. written as a Catalogue poem. it is composed with the pivot or volta in the very last line. Scorn Not the Sonnet by William Wordsworth 1827 Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned, Mindless of its just honours; with this key Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound; A thousand times this pip did Tasso sound; With it Camoens soothed an exile's grief; The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp, It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faeryland To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew Soul-animating strains, alas, too few! America has its own unique sonnet form, the Blues Sonnet

Explore the Craft of Writing Poetry English Verse The English speaker is blessed with a rich and varied history of English poetic writing that dates back to the Anglo Saxons who produced the legendary Beowulf. Moving forward to Middle English, Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the anonymous, morality play Everyman set high standards. The Renaissance produced poetry by Wyatt, Johnson, Spenser, Donne, Shakespeare, and so many more, poetry that is still quoted, recited and revered. And the list goes on, Tennyson, Browning, Kipling, Hardy, Larkin, Hughes..... If I left off your favorite, forgive me, these were names that just came off the top of my head in a few seconds of typing. In My Craft Or Sullen Art by Dylan Thomas In my craft or sullen art Exercised in the still night When only the moon rages And the lovers lie abed With all their griefs in their arms I labour by singing light Not for ambition or bread Or the strut and trade of charms On the ivory stages But for the common wages Of their most secret heart. Not for the proud man apart From the raging moon I write On these spindrift pages Nor for the towering dead With their nightingales and psalms But for the lovers, their arms Round the griefs of the ages, Who pay no praise or wages Nor heed my craft or art. I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud by William Wordsworth I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced, but they Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee; A poet could not be but gay, In such a jocund company! I gazed—and gazed—but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils. English Stanzaic and Verse Forms (includes Anglo Saxon and Cornish verse) a la Bartholomew Griffin ABBA Abercrombie Abstract Poetry Anglo Saxon, Accentual Verse or Alliterative Verse Arnold Beymorilin Sonnet Bina Binyon Blunden Boast Bob and Wheel Bowlesian Sonnet Brace Octave Brag Bridges Cameo Carol Texte or Burden Carol Stanza Chaucer's Rime or Stanza Christabel Meter Clerihew Common Measure Common Octave Cornish Sonnet Irregular or Cowleyan Ode Crambo Curtal Long Hymnal Stanza Curtal Sonnet Decrina de la Mare de Tabley Deten Dipodic Quatrain Dixon Dobson Donne Double Ballad Stanza Dowson Dryden Roundelay English Heroic Line English Madrigal English Ode English Quintet English Roundelay English Sonnet Fletcher Fourteener Fourteener Couplet Fourteenth Century Stanza Gilbert Heroic Couplet Heroic Octave Heroic Rispetto Herrick Hexaduad Inverted Hexaduad Hymnal Measure Hymnal Octave In Memoriam Stanza Irregular Ode Keastian Ode Kipling Little Willie Long hymnal Measure Long Hymnal Octave Long Measure Long Measure Octave Madsong Stanza Mc Whirtle Miltronic Sonnet Noyes Omar stanza O'Shaughnessy Pensee Phillimore Poulter's Measure Quaternion Reverse English Sonnet Rhymed Double Sestina Roundel Roundelay Russell Rhyme Royal Scupham Sonnet Sept Shakespearean Sonnet Shantey Short hymnal Short English Madrigal Short Measure Short octave Short particular measure Short Rondel Sidney's Double Sestina Skeltonics Spenserian Sonnet Spenserian Stanza Stephens Stevenson Swinburne Swinburne's Double Sestina Swinburne's Rhymed Sestina Tennyson Thorley Trench Triplet Tudoric Lyric Tumbling verse Underground Poetry Unrhymed Sonnet Uranian Movement Venus and Adonis Stanza Victorian Movement War Poets Wheel Wordsworth Sonnet Wyatt/Surrey Sonnet Yeats Octave ZaniLa Rhyme

Explore the Craft of Writing Poetry The Ode English Verse Irregular Ode or Cowleyan Ode, as the first name implies is an ode made up of a number of strophes that are unlike in structure. This verse is also sometimes called the Cowleyan Ode for 17th century English poet Abraham Cowley who studied the odes of Pindar and attempted to emulate them. But unlike Pindar, Cowley's odes did not relegate the various strophes to the triad order of the Pindaric Ode. Neither did it retain the uniform stanzas of the Horatian, Keatsian or Ronsardian Odes. The various strophes of the Irregular or Cowleyan Ode vary in purpose, line length, number of lines, meter, and rhyme. The frame of each strophe changes at the discretion of the poet. Ode: Intimations of Immortality by William Wordsworth (1st 3 stanzas) --------'The Child is father of the Man; --------And I could wish my days to be --------Bound each to each by natural piety.' I There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, --------To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore; - Turn wheresoe'er I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more. II The Rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the Rose, The Moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare; Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair; The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where'er I go, That there hath past away a glory from the earth. Links to other Odes The Ode Odes named for poet or culture of their origin: The Aeolic Ode The Choral Ode or Pindaric Ode or Dorian Ode The Anacreontic Ode The Horatian Ode The Irregular or Cowleyan Ode The Keatsian or English Ode The Ronsardian Ode Thematic Odes: Elegy, Obsequy, Threnody Ode Elemental Ode Genethliacum Ode Encomium or Coronation Ode Epithalamion or Epithalamium and Protholathiumis Palinode Ode Panegyric or Paean Triumphal Ode Occasional Verse