Terza Rima: A Chain Rhyme

The terza rima, which originated in Italy, can trace its roots back to Persia and the Orient.  The poem, which consists of 3-line stanzas, is written in iambic pentameter.  It follows a chain rhyme in which the middle of each stanza rhymes with the first and last line of the next stanza.  The rhyme scheme is: ABA BCB CDC DED (http://www.webexhibits.org/poetry/explore_classic_tercet_examples.html).
Dante was the first European to popularize the terza rima in his work Divina Commedia.

http://www.liceotelesiocosenza.gov.it/circolari-e-avvisi/465-seminari-divina-commedia.html

Sixteenth Century poet Nicholas Breton wrote "Country Song" (http://www.webexhibits.org/poetry/explore_classic_tercet_examples.html.).

Alfred Lord Tennyson, one of the most famous Victorian-era poets, composed "The Eagle", published in 1851 at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU6O6Sv_P-E

Edwin Arlington Robinson, an American poet, wrote "The House on the Hill, published in 1894.

They are all gone away,

The house is shut and still,

There is nothing more to say.

Through broken walls and gray

The winds blow bleak and shrill:

They are all gone away.

Nor is there one today

To speak them good or ill:

There is nothing more to say.

Why is it then we stray

Around the sunken sill?

They are all gone away.

And our poor fancy-play

For them is wasted skill

There is nothing more to say.

There is ruin and decay

In the House on the Hill:

They are all gone away

There is nothing more to say.

http://amblingbooks.com/books/view/the_house_on_the_hill#.VVjrcflViko

The Shakespearean Sonnet: A Thing of Beauty

The Shakespearean Sonnet is one of the oldest traditions in English poetry.  Composed of 14 lines this sonnet follows the following rhyming scheme:  ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG.  It is written in iambic pentameter:  each line is composed of five feet; each foot is composed of an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iambic_pentameter).

It is divided into three quatrains and one couplet.  The first quatrain introduces the main theme or metaphor.  The second quatrain extends the theme or metaphor.  The third quatrain gives the poem an unexpected twist, called peripeteia.  The couplet summarizes the poem; it gives the poem a concluding image (http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/writing-a-sonnet.html).

One of Shakespeare's most popular sonnets is Sonnet 18:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course, untrimmed.

But they eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest,

Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest.

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

http://www.polyvore.com/shall_compare_thee_to_summers/contest.show?id=177037

Here is a Shakespearean sonnet I wrote in 2006 about a bridge that Rob and I used to visit in St. Mary's, Ontario, called As I Stand on the Old Train Bridge:

O'er the river Thames the red sun disappears

As I stand on the old train bridge looking down.

I can almost hear the trains of yesteryear

Winding their weary way through the old stone town.

The river carves a path through the fertile ground.

Next to the running water lies a lush plain.

The grass is so green and the trees do abound

Where Jersey cows once grazed beneath passing trains.

Two ducks take a long drink after the soft rain.

As they hide behind a swaying poplar tree.

In the distance grows a field of golden grain

As far away as the naked eye can see.

As I stand on the old train bridge, silence speaks:

And a hush falls over the meandering creak.

http://www.townofstmarys.com/discover/attractions/attractions.aspx?id=4332