The rhyme royal stanza consists of seven lines, usually in iambic pentameter.
The rhyme scheme is ababbcc. In practice, the stanza can be constructed
either as a tercet and two couplets (a-b-a, b-b, c-c) or
a quatrain and a tercet (a-b-a-b, b-c-c).
This allows for a good deal of variety, especially when the form is used for
longer narrative poems and along with the couplet,
it was the standard narrative metre in the late Middle Ages.
Example Poem
Tenpus Ambigua (Rhyme Royal)
The concept time is quite beyond my ken.
String theory baffles brilliant folks and me.
I’ll not wax philosophical again.
Perhaps I did already, shame on me.
We’d be confused in synchronicity.
For flies who live for but a single day,
young boys and men would seem two breeds at play.
¨*•.¸¸¸¸.•*¨*•? .?.•*»? ??•*¨*•.¸¸¨*•.¸¸¸¸.•*¨*•
We can tell larva and the grown-up fly
are one, we see them grow. They must mistake
we humans as a species that won’t die.
Our sense of time is different awake
or when asleep, and tasks a diff’rence makes.
Don’t tell a guy that seconds are the same
while shov’ling shit or kissing up a dame.
© Lawrencealot – July 12, 2013
Example Poem
Tenpus Ambigua (Rhyme Royal)
The concept time is quite beyond my ken.
String theory baffles brilliant folks and me.
I’ll not wax philosophical again.
Perhaps I did already, shame on me.
We’d be confused in synchronicity.
For flies who live for but a single day,
young boys and men would seem two breeds at play.
¨*•.¸¸¸¸.•*¨*•? .?.•*»? ??•*¨*•.¸¸¨*•.¸¸¸¸.•*¨*•
We can tell larva and the grown-up fly
are one, we see them grow. They must mistake
we humans as a species that won’t die.
Our sense of time is different awake
or when asleep, and tasks a diff’rence makes.
Don’t tell a guy that seconds are the same
while shov’ling shit or kissing up a dame.
© Lawrencealot – July 12, 2013
Visual Template
