• The de la Mare is a verse form patterned after Fare Well by English poet, Walter De La Mare (1873-1956). De La Mare is better known for his poem The Listeners.
The de la Mare is:
○ stanzaic, written in any number of octaves made up of 2 quatrains.
○ metered, quatrains of 3 tetrameter lines followed by a dimeter line.
○ rhymed, xaxaxbxb xcxcxdxd etc. x being unrhymed.
○ composed with alternating feminine and masculine end words, only the masculine end words are rhymed.
Fare Well by Walter de la Mare
When I lie where shades of darkness
Shall no more assail mine eyes,
Nor the rain make lamentation
When the wind sighs;
How will fare the world whose wonder
Was the very proof of me?
Memory fades, must the remembered
Perishing be?
Oh, when this my dust surrenders
Hand, foot, lip, to dust again,
May these loved and loving faces
Please other men!
May the rusting harvest hedgerow
Still the Traveller’s Joy entwine,
And as happy children gather
Posies once mine.
Look thy last on all things lovely,
Every hour. Let no night
Seal thy sense in deathly slumber
Till to delight
Thou have paid thy utmost blessing;
Since that all things thou wouldst praise
Beauty took from those who loved them
In other days
Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=668
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work creating the fine PoetryMagnumOpen resource.
My example poem
Tommy Teased Me (The de la Mare)
Tommy teased me to distraction
told me I was “just a girl”.
N’er-the-less he told all strangers-
I was his pearl.
Tommy taught me worms aren’t icky,
showed me how to fly a kite.
I most miss him in the daytime
Mom cries at night.
How I hope that heaven’s happy,
Daddy says that’s where he went.
Now there is a hole beside me
since his ascent.
Pictures on the fireplace mantle
Tell the tales of trips we shared
Mostly I’ll miss Tommy’s teasing
because he cared.
© Lawrencealot – June 11,2014
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