Specific line group types

refrain

Use this for a single line or a group of lines which, even if it is typographically part of a stanza, functions apart from the rest of the stanza as a comment, or an echo, or an exclamation. A poem that contains a refrain usually has several line groups and repeats the refrain after each one. Note that some fixed-form poems (the villanelle, for example) repeat a phrase or an entire line within their stanzas - don't bother to tag these instances; the kind of refrain that concerns us here is exemplified by Charlotte Smith's poem Hope, which she subtitles "A Rondeau" although it does not at all conform to that French fixed form. It does, however, clearly have a refrain which is tacked on to a quatrain, a quatrain, and a tercet, as follows:

Just like Hope is yonder bow,
That from the center bends so low,
Where bright prismatic colours show
How gems of heavenly radiance glow,
Just like Hope!

Yet if, to the illusion new,
The pilgrim should the arch pursue,
Farther and farther from his view,
It flies; then melts in chilling dew,
Just like Hope!

Ye fade, ethereal hues! for ever,
While, cold Reason, thy endeavour
Sooths not that sad heart, which never
Glows with Hope!

[From OT00276, page 131] For a similar example, see Mary Robinson's Horatian Ode in OT00190 [page 56].

couplet

A couplet is a pair of lines, usually (but not exclusively) rhymed. How can you tell if an unrhymed pair of lines counts as a couplet? - if they seem to exist as a unit, especially one made typographically distinct. However, the overwhelming majority of couplets in our textbase are rhymed. Couplets can be in any meter; two of the most important forms are the heroic couplet (two rhymed lines in iambic pentameter) and the Alexandrine couplet (two rhymed Alexandrine lines). Heroic couplets were ubiquitous throughout the eighteenth century; not surprisingly, our textbase contains thousands of them. Here, for example, is the opening verse paragraph of Mrs. Leapor's Dorinda at her Glass:

Dorinda, once the fairest of the Train,
Toast of the Town, and Triumph of the Plain;
Whose shining Eyes a thousand Hearts alarm'd,
Whose Wit inspired, and whose Follies charm'd:
Who, with Invention, rack'd her careful Breast
To find new Graces to insult the rest,
Now sees her Temples take a swarthy Hue,
And the dark Veins resign their beauteous Blue;
While on her Cheeks the fading Roses die,
And the last Sparkles tremble in her Eye.

[From OT00266, page 1-2]

tercet

A tercet is a group of three lines that clearly stands as a compositional unit. Tercets can be stanzas: the villanelle, for example, is a fixed-form type of poem made up of five tercets and a concluding quatrain. They can also be sub-units of larger units such as strophes and verse paragraphs. Often, for example, tercets rhyming AAA will be interspersed throughout a poem that is primarily in couplets—usually in these instances the tercets are typographically marked with a curly bracket. Lady Mary Chudleigh's poem The Ladies Defence provides several examples. The rhyme scheme known as terza rima links multiple tercets one to the next in the pattern ABA BCB CDC DED, etc. For a particularly interesting use of tercets, look at the stanza form used by Jane Taylor in her poem An Enigma. The first two lines each have five syllables (from an iamb and an anapest), but the last line is hendecasyllabic (from an iamb and three anapests; use your fingers!)—very unusual:

Yet sorrow and pain
Oft welcome my reign,
And eagerly watch for my coming again:

[From OT00215, page 303]

quatrain

Any stanza of four lines, rhymed or unrhymed, in whatever meter. Here's a short poem in quatrains, called To Maria, by Anne Francis:

Possess'd of ev'ry power to please,
Each native charm, improved by art,
Has all of dignity, and ease—
That strikes, pervades, and glads the heart:

Oft art thou present to my mind
In all the glow of beauty dress'd,
Each charm, exalted and refined;
By fancy's pencil well express'd.

But, wherefore absent from my sight?
To Anna's bosom, ever dear!
Who views thee, present, with delight,
Who names thee, absent, with a tear.

[From OT00141, page 239]

common stanza

"Common meter" describes a quatrain in iambics where the first and third lines contain four iambic feet, the second and fourth lines have three iambic feet. It occurs frequently in hymns and originated as one of several ballad forms. And indeed, it is in ballads and "tales" that you will most often encounter it in our textbase; as in, for example, Anne Francis' Acetus: A Tale:

Awake, O pensive Muse, and sing,
The lighter airs forego,
Strike deep the sad-resounding string,
The string attuned to woe:

[From OT00141, page 157]

quintet

A five-line stanza in any meter, rhymed or unrhymed. One version, known as the "English quintet", rhymes ABABB; Katherine Phillips uses this stanza form in her poem Friendship's Mystery, from which the following example is taken:

Come, my Lucasia, since we see
That Miracles Mens faith do move,
By wonders and by prodigy
To the dull angry world let's prove
There's a Religion in our Love.

[From OT00270, page 43]

Charlotte Smith, as ever, provides an interesting version of the form in her poem The Swallow. She uses the rhyme scheme associated with a Spanish form called the quintilla (ABAAB) but makes the last line six syllables instead of the quintilla's eight; thus:

The gorse is yellow on the heath,
The banks with speedwell flowers are gay,
The oaks are budding; and beneath,
The hawthorn soon will bear the wreath,
The silver wreath of May.

[From OT00276, page 79]

sestet

A six-line stanza. These abound in our textbase, with all sorts of meters and rhyme schemes. Here is a typical version, from Margaret Holford's The Poet's Fate:

Why idly, shepherd, thro' the live-long day,
In thriftless song, thy youthful leisure waste?
The busy world now beckons thee away,
Oh quit thy dream, of solid joys to taste;
Nor vainly liberal of youth's golden prime,
Give to the thankless Muse, thy swiftly fleeting time!

[From OT00149, page 7]

septet

Use this for any seven-line stanza that is not in rime royal (see below). Our textbase doesn't include many seven-liners, but Jane Taylor gives us an interesting and unusual variant (AABCCCB), in her Remonstrance to Time:

Stay hoary sage! one moment deign
To hear thy duteous child complain;
Nor scorn her pensive lay:
But while a suppliant at thy side,
Thy fearful scythe in pity hide,
And that old hour-glass throw aside;
They fright my song away.

[From OT00215, page 297]

rime royal

Seven iambic pentameter lines rhyming ABABBCC. For example, Aemilia Lanyer's To the Ladie Arabella uses rime royal, as in this stanza:

Great learned Ladie, whom I long have knowne,
And yet not knowne as much as I desired:
Rare Phoenix, whose faire feathers are your owne,
With which you flie, and are so much admired:
True honour whom true Fame hath so attired,
In glittering raiment shining much more bright
Than silver Starres in the most frostie night.

octet

Use this for any eight-line stanza which is not in ottava rima (see below). The following example is the first stanza of Ann Cristall's Song, On Leaving the Country Early in the Spring:

While joy re-animates the fields,
And spring her odorous treasures yields;
While love inspires the happy grove,
And music breaks from every spray;
I leave the sweet retreat I love
Ere bloss'ming hawthorn greets the May;
Sad destiny! O! let me plaintive pour
O'er the unopen'd bud an unrefreshing shower.

[From OT00131, page 57]

ottava rima

An octave in iambic pentameter, rhyming ABABABCC For example, Aemilia Lanyer's Salve Deus Rex Judæorum is in ottava rima. Here is the first stanza:

Sith Cynthia is ascended to that rest
Of endlesse joy and true Eternitie,
That glorious place that cannot be exprest
By any wight clad in mortalitie,
In her almightie love so highly blest,
And crown'd with everlasting Sov'raigntie;
Where Saints and Angells do attend her Throne,
And she gives glorie unto God alone.

Spenserian stanza

Easily recognizable, it consists of nine lines which rhyme ABABBCBCC. For meter buffs, the first eight lines are iambic pentameters, the last an alexandrine (six iambs). Not common in our textbase, but you will come across them. This example comes from The Foster-Child, a poem by Mary Robinson which she subtitles "In Imitation of Spenser":

'Mid Cambria's hills a lowly cottage stood,
Circled with mossy tufts of sombre green;
A vagrant brook flow'd wildly through the wood,
Flashing in lucid lapse the shades between;
And, clothed in mist, a distant hut was seen:
A village spire above the copse rose white;
And oft, when summer closed the day serene,
The broad horizon glisten'd golden-bright,
Beskirted here and there with purple-tinted light.

[From OT00190, page 99] Catherine Garnett also uses them, but she makes the last line iambic pentameter. See OT00142, pages 189, 193, 216.