Sestina
Sestina - form of poetry that uses a method of repeating words
at the end of each line. It has 6 stanzas of 6 lines each, with an
envoy (or tercet) of three lines to conclude the poem
Here in this bleak
city of Rochester,
Where there are
twenty-seven words
for "snow,"
Not all of them
polite, the wayward
mind
Basks in some
Yucatan of its own
making,
Some coppery, sleek
lagoon, or cinnamon
island
Alive with lemon
tints and burnished
natives,
And O that we were
there. But here the
natives
Of this grey, sunless
city of Rochester
Have sown whole
mines of salt about
their land
(Bare ruined
Carthage that it is)
while snow
Comes down as if
The Flood were in the
making.
Yet on that ocean
Marvell called the
mind
Ye Goatherd gods, that love
the grassy mountains,
Ye nymphs which haunt the
springs in pleasant valleys,
Ye satyrs joyed with free and
quiet forests,
Vouchsafe your silent ears to
plaining music,
Which to my woes gives still
an early morning,
And draws the dolor on till
weary evening.
Klaius.
A sestina is a poem that
contains the same end words in
the poem, but switches them
around in each stanza.
Example: Stanza 1 - ABCDEF
Stanza 2 - DBCEFA
O Mercury, foregoer to the
evening,
O heavenly huntress of the
savage mountains,
O lovely star, entitled of the
morning
While that my voice doth fill
these woeful valleys,
Vouchsafe your silent ears to
plaining music,
Which oft hath Echo tired in
secret forests.
In the first example, the words “Rochester,” “snow,”
“mind,” “making,” “island,” and “natives” are in this
order in the first stanza. But in the second stanza, they’re
mixed up in a different order.
In the second example, the words “mountains,”
“valleys,” “forests,” “music,” “morning,” and “evening”
are in this order, but are switched around in the second
stanza.