Sneadhbhairdne (sna-vuy-erd-ne):
A quatrain stanza of alternating eight syllable lines and four syllable lines with two syllable endings. Lines two and four rhyme, line three consonates with both. All words in the final line must rhyme line, the final word of line four alliterating with the preceding stressed word.
(x B) x x x x (x a)
x x (x b)
x x x x x (b c)
b b (x B)
Pasted from <http://www.thepoetsgarret.com/celtic1.html>
Sneadhbairdne (snay-vuy-erd-ne) is an ancient Irish Form seemingly overloaded with features used in direct meter.
The Sneadhbairdne is:
• stanzaic, written in any number of quatrains.
• syllabic 8-4-8-4 syllables per line.
• alliterated in each line.
• written with two-syllable end words in each line.
• rhymed, L2 and L4 end rhyme. L3 consonates with the rhyme.
• every stressed syllable in L4 must rhyme.
• written with cywddydd (harmony of sound) and dunadh (beginning and ending the poem with the same word, phrase or line).
x x x x x x (x x)
x x (x A)
x x x x x x (x a)
x A(x A)
October by Barbara Hartman
Beware! Canyon country’s ablaze
—gold leaves galore
glow by silver streams that glisten,
storms roar, restore.
Cumulus clouds shroud the Chuskas,
people prepare
for horny hunters who declare
“Let bears beware!”
Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=1166
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.