A feast of versifying
by cricketjeff on October 3, 2008. © Jeff Green, All rights reserved
There’s nothing finer than to rhyme
With perfect meter beating time
You have to let the language play
And show the world the proper way
You sound profound
with rhyme around
So follow me
And assonate
And resonate
Your poetry
It’s so much fun to choose your words
Avoiding obvious absurds
You ought to mix in other tricks
To give the reader quite a fix
Of poets fun
Along the run
Alliterate
Give tongues a twist
That will assist
In sounding great
At last you’re ready to declaim
The spoken word bring you fame
You read aloud your poetry
So all your friends will have to see
That you are smart
You know your art
They ought to bow
And scrape to you
That’s what they’ll do
So show them how!
Author notes
(i) I wish you to write two or three stanzas with the PATTERN:
aabbccdeed. This is a very close approximation to Henry’s stanzas. Of course, I
do not require you to copy Henry’s rhymes necessarily but to use this PATTERN
for each stanza.
(ii) This poem by his very late majesty is a light-hearted one.
You are to write on an activity (or associated ones) that are your “pastance”!
(iii) The first four lines of each stanza should be eight syllables and the
following six lines are to be four syllables.
(iv) Repetition to give a song-like character: Notice Henry used “pastance”
twice; “company” four times; ‘good’ (& goodly) four times; “vices” twice, etc.
Now, I do not wish you to ‘ape’ this but bear the repetition of certain words
and syntactical methods
in mind.
(v) Enjoy yourself. Direct further questions to the account ‘Winklings’. Oh,
enter as many times as you wish. Make a banquet of it!
English