NOTE: This is admittedly and intentionally not the formal Sapphic Verse.
When I found this construct I did not capture the creator's name, and now that I am making the forms public, I would very much like to provide attribution. If anyone can help it will be added with appreciation.
3 quatrains composed of 3 lines of iambic tetrameter
and a 4th line of iambic dimeter,
closing couplet in iambic tetrameter
Rhyme Scheme: abab cdcd efef gg
Example Poem:
Seasoned Harvest (Sapphic Ode Sonnet)
We gamboled through the summer hay-
alfalfa growing green and tall
enough to hide in anyway,
when we were small.
I had no sibling, nor did she
and neighbors weren't that near those days.
We'd languor in the apple tree
those summer days.
She grew up lithe and comely yet
while I was craggy faced and shy
through school she did not once forget
I was her guy.
When I asked she did not demure;
"Me, marry you?"she said, "Why sure."
© Lawrencealot - Oct. 18, 2012
Visual Template:
The Sapphic form is made up of four-line stanzas. Strictly speaking, each of the first three lines has eleven syllables that go like this:
ReplyDeleteLine 1,2, and 3:
- u - x - u u - u - -u -
- u - x - u u - u - -u -
- u - x - u u - u - -u -
- = stressed, u = unstressed, x = either
(dah di dah di dah di di dah di dah di)
The last line has five syllables and goes like this:
Line 4:
- u u - u
(dah di di dah di)
Wikipedia has this wrong. Many people have this wrong. There are some people who have created an Aglocized version and claimed it was Sapphic, but it is not.
Example:
Overflowing wells filled with only sadness
Steal my breath and still all my worldly madness
With morosely tenderized passions laden
There all my tremblings
O-ver-FLOW-ing WELLS filled with O-nly SAD-ness
ReplyDeleteSTEAL my BREATH and STILL all my WORLD-ly MAD-ness
WITH moROSEly TEN-der-izedPAS-sions LA-den
THERE are my TREM-blings
Great comments here folks. Please pay attention, I concur with every comment this published poet has made.
ReplyDeleteI knew this was a specific form of the Sapphic genre, and would like to credit the source of this Anglocized version, unfortunately a computer crash last year lost that data, and today's search for it failed to satisfy.
That being said, when I did write this, the Sapphic Ode Sonnet form, was noted as distinct from Sapphic Ode verse.