Wreathed and Unwreathed Octave

The following description is reposted with permission from The Poets Garret. My thanks to Ryter Roethicle.

Wreathed Octave

Wreathed poetry is simply a natural blending of English poetry with the Celtic Welsh. Its creator George Herbert was born into a wealthy artistic family in Wales and later was educated in Trinity College, Cambridge and was unpublished until after his death. It is believed that his poem A Wreath was inspired by the Welsh form Englyn cryrch which uses an internal rhyme scheme with an external one and gives a couplet scheme of:

x. x. x. x. x. x. x. a. x. a. x. x. x. x. x. b.

 

The red in the second line indicates that the internal rhyme can be anywhere in the first part of second line and can be a repeat word rather than a rhyme. that is the poets decision. There is no internal rhyme in the first line, It was later that poets saw the possibilities and created the octave with a rhyme scheme of:

 

x. x. x. x. x. x. x. a. x. a. x. x. x. x. x. b. x. b. x. x. x. x. x. a. x. a. x. x. x. x. x. b. x. b. x. x. x. x. x. c. x. c. x. x. x. x. x. d. x. d. x. x. x. x. x. c. x. c. x. x. x. x. x. d.

 

Here is an example of that form:

 

Shrouded Thoughts   Must I wait one more day to speak to you Tell you of my eternal love and desire to share. Everything I dare you know I will pursue In that pursuit, there is nothing I will not dare. Knowing you care, certain of you wanting me Especially of being betrayed in the recent past Now that is past even more I need certainty Are you my certainty and will our love last? Ryter Roethicle

 

Un-wreathed Octave

Later poets realised that some Irish forms led with an internal form and from that was born Un-wreathed poetry, simply the reverse of Wreathed in that the first line starts with an internal rhyme with the second external and so on, there being no fifth line there is no external rhyme, giving it a basic rhyme scheme of:

x. b. x. x. x. x. x. a. x. a. x. x. x. x. x. b. x. b. x. x. x. x. x. a. x. c. x. x. x. x. x. b. x. d. x. x. x. x. x. c. x. c. x. x. x. x. x. d. x. d. x. x. x. x. x. c. x. x. x. x. x. x. x. d.

 

 

Homeostasis

The water from the snow today
is stored away in mountains high
so we’re not dry come late in May.
Don’t damn the grey bleak winter sky
I don’t deny fair skies are good,
but fields and wood would suffer drought
were they without the snow that stood;
because it could we’re not without.

© Lawrencealot – March 1, 2015

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