My question is how do you describe rhythm in words? I know the rhyme scheme is abab cdcd.
Poem in question:
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued. I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're looking for, but in poetry, the rhythm of the words is called it's meter, and the description of poetic meter is called prosody. It uses lots of rather obscure (to those who don't study poetry) words to describe the rythmic nature of the poem. Most people have heard of it referred to, I think, though, such as when talking about the "iambic pentameter" that Shakespeare used.
I would describe the meter of the poem you listed as iambic dimeter. It's iambic, because it primarily uses the pattern of stressed syllables called an iamb, which is one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, like "da-DUM". It's dimeter because it has two iambs in each line; di- meaning two, just like pentameter uses five iambs per line, penta- meaning five.
So reading the first few lines, capital letters indicating the stress:
the WAY a CROW
shook DOWN on ME
shows how the stress always comes on the second and fourth syllables, and how there are always two groups of unstressed-stressed syllables in a line.
Hope that helps. |
