The lines or verses composing a stanza are bound
together by definite principles of rhythm and rhyme. Usually stanzas of
the same poem have the same structure, but stanzas of different poems show
a variety of structure.
Two of the most simple forms are the couplet and the triplet. They often
form a part of a continuous poem, but they are occasionally found in
divided poems.
1.
The western waves of ebbing day
Roll'd o'er the glen their level way.
--Scott.
2.
A chieftain's daughter seemed the maid;
Her satin snood, her silken plaid,
Her golden brooch such birth betray'd.
--Scott.
A stanza of four lines is called a quatrain. The lines of quatrains show a
variety in the arrangement of their rhymes. The first two lines may rhyme
with each other and the last two with each other; the first and fourth may
rhyme and the second and third; or the rhymes may alternate. Notice the
example on page 208, and also the following:--
1.
I ask not wealth, but power to take
And use the things I have aright.
Not years, but wisdom that shall make
My life a profit and delight.
--Phoebe Cary.
2.
I count this thing to be grandly true:
That a noble deed is a step toward God,--
Lifting the soul from the common sod
To a purer air and a broader view.
--Holland.
A quatrain consisting of iambic pentameter verse with alternate rhymes is
called an elegiac stanza.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.
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