Stave

[Tinker]

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Scottish Verse

The Stave is a Scottish drinking song. This stanzaic form is an ancestor of the Burns Stanza.

The elements of the Stave are:

1. stanzaic written in any number of sixains.
2. metered, uniform length lines, usually tetrameter.
3. rhymed, aabbcC ddeecC ffggcC etc. C being a refrain or a stricter rhyme scheme AabbaA AaccaA AaddaA etc. A being a refrain
4. composed with a refrain repeated from stanza to stanza.

   Bottoms Up! by Barbara Hartman                               Hail to the Sun by Judi Van Gorder  3-23-23
   
   Here's to innocent birds that sing
   while winter trickles into spring,
   to robins, meadowlarks and wrens,
   to cocks that crow and cackling hens,
   to crows that caw and hawks that scream,
   to all who wake me from a dream.
   
   Here's to long days and shorter nights,
   to late sunsets' lingering light,
   to desert varnished canyon walls,
   to rainbow tinted waterfalls,
   to moonlit clouds and stars that gleam,
   to light that wakes me from a dream.
   
   Here's to the scent of cedar smoke,
   wet sheep corrals, red dust that chokes,
   to rain-soaked sage and pungent weeds,
   drifting pollen from windblown seeds.
   Let's drink to love, life's constant stream,
   the love that wakes me from my dream.