Daniel

I cannot imagine your sorrow at the time this was written but your words impress upon me the depth of your grief.

Wonderful application of form and content...

Mary

Hi again, Mary.  I don't think I ever shared this one with you.  I wrote this last year after returning from my mother's funeral in WA.  It's only my second terza rima:

Withered Words

Leaves weeping "Where'd you go?" from whimp'ring trees. 
Brown grass and dust disgustedly abhor
poor Zoe's vainly digging - moisture pleas. 

What was this garden like a month before?
Its gard'ner had to fly - the eldest son - 
to see his mother off; forced to ignore . . . 

Azalea whispers, "Why?" as one by one 
her once-proud greens become a withered brown. 
Friend Daisy joys no more to see the sun. 

Tomato, showing reticence, bends down 
to bear its bulging still-green fruit, detests 
long days of sweltering heat.  Corn wears a frown. 

"Not fair," cries drooping Willow.  Oak protests 
"He cares," stands tall and dryly sheds disdain. 
Poor robin shrugs in search of shriveled pests. 

Ah, morning!  Thunder, bolting God's refrain
refreshing weary souls with gentle rain

© Daniel J Ricketts 24 August 2002

The Terza Rima is an Italian form of poetry.  It follows a strict interlocking rhyme pattern but the form has no limit on the length.  

Dante is credited with inventing it in the 1300’s and in 1933 Archibald MacLeish won the Pulitzer Prize with his terza rima entitled  “Conquistador.” 

A terza rima is written in tercets ( 3-line stanzas ) with interlocking rhymes (lines 1 and 3 rhyme).  The word at the end of Line 2 in the first tercet becomes the rhyming word required for Lines 1 and 3 of the next tercet -- and so on.  

The Terza Rima is completed with a couplet ( 2 line stanza ) that rhyme with the middle line of the last tercet. So you could say it has a rhyme pattern of:   aba bcb cdc ded efe ff.

This form is generally written in iambic pentameter; other meters, however, have been used.  The imperative is to have all the lines hold the same meter throughout.  

Dante’s Divine Comedy is probably the most well-known Terza Rima, although such masters as Frost, Auden, Chaucer, Shelley and T.S. Eliot have used this form. 

Here is an example of a Terza Rima

by Robert Frost

Acquainted with the Night

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain--and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-by;
and further still at an unearthly height
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.