2. • The Character by William Wordsworth
• I marvel how Nature could ever find space
For so many strange contrasts in one human face:
Quatrains: There's thought and no thought, and there's paleness and
bloom
The poem to the right is a quatrain, in And bustle and sluggishness, pleasure and gloom.
the form AA BB…quatrains can also be
in AAAA form, AABA form or ABAB There's weakness, and strength both redundant and vain;
form.
Such strength as, if ever affliction and pain
Could pierce through a temper that's soft to disease,
Would be rational peace--a philosopher's ease.
They are frequently in iambic
pentameter (like Shakespeare) which There's indifference, alike when he fails or succeeds,
And attention full ten times as much as there needs;
means it is said with a da dum beat Pride where there's no envy, there's so much of joy;
repeated 5 times. And mildness, and spirit both forward and coy.
There's freedom, and sometimes a diffident stare
da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, da Of shame scarcely seeming to know that she's there,
DUM, da DUM. There's virtue, the title it surely may claim,
Yet wants heaven knows what to be worthy the name.
Here is a stanza in AABA form… This picture from nature may seem to depart,
Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring Yet the Man would at once run away with your heart;
Your Winter garment of Repentance fling: And I for five centuries right gladly would be
The Bird of Time has but a little way Such an odd such a kind happy creature as he.
To flutter--and the Bird is on the Wing.
3. Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
by
Thomas Gray
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, shade,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering
way, heap,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the
sight, The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds, The swallow twittering from the straw-built
Save where the beetle wheels his droning shed,
flight, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds: No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower For them no more the blazing hearth shall
The moping owl does to the moon complain burn,
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
Molest her ancient solitary reign. No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share,
4. Another Quatrain (in iambic
Pentameter)
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
When You Are Old
WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face among a crowd of stars.
5. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
By Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I He gives his harness bells a shake
know. To ask if there is some mistake.
His house is in the village though; The only other sound’s the sweep
He will not see me stopping here Of easy wind and downy flake.
To watch his woods fill up with
snow.
The woods are lovely, dark and
My little horse must think it queer deep.
To stop without a farmhouse near But I have promises to keep,
Between the woods and frozen And miles to go before I sleep,
lake And miles to go before I sleep.
The darkest evening of the year.
6. How to Write Your Poem in Quatrain
Form
1. Choose a subject for your poem. More abstract topics such as nature or emotion
are easiest to find rhyme for, however you can write about anything. It could even tell
a story as your poem can have more than one stanza.
2. Choose a rhyme scheme. It is best to choose the rhyme scheme before you start
writing however you may have to change it later if you can't find anything to fit.
Common rhyme schemes for a quatrain are: ABAB, ABCD. If you have more than one
verse you could consider: AABA BBCB CCDC etc. or similar.
An example of ABAB rhyme scheme would be:
A:Today there was some snow
B: It's falling down a treat
A:Then the wind began to blow
B: And now it's turned to sleet.
Notice how all the "A" lines rhyme and all the "B" lines rhyme.
The first example in step one is AABB rhyme scheme. The second is ABAB.
The first line is the base of your poem because they don't have to rhyme with anything yet. Start
with this
7. Writing Quatrains
Last Step:
Brain storm a list of words that rhyme with the last
word of the line you've written, but try to find ones
that can be related to your topic.
The first line is always called "A" so check the rhyme
scheme you've chosen and see where the line that
rhymes with A (also called A) fits into your poem.
Build on the words you've brainstormed so they
become a line. For beginners, try and create lines all
of similar lengths and meter (10 syllables).
8. • William Shakespeare’s Macbeth
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and
Blank Verse tomorrow,
Definition of Blank Verse
Creeps in this petty pace from day to
day,
Blank Verse is Poetry that is
written in unrhymed iambic
To the last syllable of recorded time;
pentameter. Blank verse is
And all our yesterdays have lighted
often unobtrusive and the fools
iambic pentameter form The way to dusty death.
often resembles the rhythms Out, out, brief candle!
of ordinary speech. William Life's but a walking shadow, a poor
Shakespeare wrote most of player
his plays in blank verse. That struts and frets his hour upon
the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
9. A classic example of iambic pentameter is
this line written by John Keats:
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel
How to Write Blank Verse shells.
To understand blank verse poetry, you Sometimes a line written in iambic
need to understand iambic
pentameter, which is the typical pentameter will have an extra, weakly
rhyming and stress scheme behind stressed syllable at the end. This is called
most poetry. Iambic pentameter is a iambic pentameter with a weak ending. An
line of 10 syllables, with the accent example of this is the following
falling on the
second, fourth, sixth, eighth and tenth line, written by William Shakespeare:
syllables. Whether you realize it or To be, or not to be: that is the question.
not, you've heard iambic pentameter
many, many times. You probably just Blank verse poetry makes use of iambic
didn't know what to call it pentameter, but the lines are not required
to rhyme. This frees up the poet to write
more freely, focusing more on the stress or
accenting of the lines. You'll want to make
use of each stanza as a tool to separate out
groups of thoughts.
10. Steps to Writing Your Poem in Blank
Verse
• Master the rhythm of iambic
pentameter…think of a horse’s canter
• da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, da DUM
• Think of what you would like to write about
and begin writing…don’t worry about having
the exact 10 syllables per line at first…
• Write the idea and eliminate or trade words
for iambic pentameter
11. Steps to Writing Your Poem in Blank
Verse
• When I see the sun rising over the meadow
This line has 11 syllables and we need 10…We
need to eliminate or trade words to make it 10.
When I see the sun rise over the meadow
When I see the sun rising over meadows
When I see the sun rising over the field.
