There are many forms of
poetry, but today we’re going to talk about my favorite form, and also a dying art, rhyming poetry.
Some poems tell a story and some poems evoke a feeling.
Consider the following poem by Robert Herrick, Upon Julia’s Clothes:
Whenas in silks my Julia goes
Then, me thinks, how sweetly flowes
That liquefaction of her clothes.
Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free,
O how that glittering taketh me!
In just six lines Robert Herrick paints such a vivid picture
one can almost hear the rustling and see the billowing of Julia's silk
gowns.
Here's a four-line poem, by Edwin Markham, titled Outwitted:
He drew a circle that shut me out-
Heretic,
rebel, a thing to flout.
But love
and I had the wit to win:
We drew
a circle and took him in!
This poem has a story, contrast, conflict, and resolution,
all in thirty-one words and you can almost skip to its beat.
Feel the rhythm, too, when you read these excerpt lines from
What the Choir Sang About the New Bonnet by M. T. Morrison.
A foolish
little maiden bought a foolish little bonnet
With a
ribbon and a feather and a bit of lace upon it.
A structured poem rolls right off
one's tongue. The following beautiful
poem, Jenny Kissed Me, by Leigh Hunt describes one poignant moment in
time:
Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat
in.
Time, you thief! Who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that
in.
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad;
Say that health and wealth have
missed me;
Say I'm growing old, but add-
Jenny kissed me!
Read these lines from Paul
Revere’s Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and feel the rhythm:
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of
the midnight ride of Paul Revere
On
the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five,
Hardly
a man is now alive
Who
remembers that famous day and year.
Another benefit to rhyming poetry
is the mnemonic value of making things easy to remember. How many of us would know how many days there
were in July if it weren’t for “Thirty days hath September….?”
The following excerpt from a poem entitled
Memory by Abraham Lincoln shows how
words can evoke strong feelings.
My childhood's home I see again,
And
sadden with the view,
And
still, as memory crowds my brain,
There's
pleasure in it, too.
I range
the fields with pensive tread,
And pace
the hollow rooms,
And feel
(companion of the dead)
I'm
living in the tombs.
For a change of pace, using only
four lines, John C. Bossidy aptly illustrates the snobbishness of Boston's
upper crust in A Boston Toast:
And this
is good old Boston,
The home
of the bean and the cod,
Where
the Lowells talk to the Cabots,
And the Cabots talk only to God.
Quote of the Day: A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom. Robert Frost
