A Dainty Thing's The Villanelle
William Ernest Henley 1849 (Gloucester) – 1903 (Woking)
A DAINTY thing's the Villanelle,
Sly, musical, a jewel in rhyme,
It serves its purpose passing well.
A double-clappered silver bell
That must be made to clink in chime,
A dainty thing's the Villanelle;
And if you wish to flute a spell,
Or ask a meeting 'neath the lime,
It serves its purpose passing well.
You must not ask of it the swell
Of organs grandiose and sublime--
A dainty thing's the Villanelle;
And, filled with sweetness, as a shell
Is filled with sound, and launched in time,
It serves its purpose passing well.
Still fair to see and good to smell
As in the quaintness of its prime,
A dainty thing's the Villanelle,
It serves its purpose passing well.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 02, 2023
- 37 sec read
- 346 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AbA abA abA abA abA abAA |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 654 |
Words | 122 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4 |
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"A Dainty Thing's The Villanelle" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 Oct. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/40424/a-dainty-thing's-the-villanelle>.
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