Iambic Heptameter
Iambic heptameter in poetry, is a form (style) where each line consists of 14 syllables or 7 iambic feet.
I wish to present four nicely constructed Iambic heptameter poems.
1) Because I could not stop for Death (712)
by Emily Dickinson
Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves and Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste, and I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too, for his civility.
We passed the school, where children strove at recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain, we passed the setting sun.
Or rather, he passed us; the dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown, my tippet only tulle.
We paused before a house that seemed a swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible, the cornice but a mound.
Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads were toward eternity.
(Iambic Heptameter)
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2) Dark Grace - Quatorzain
by Giorgio Venetopoulos
The asphalt of the ghost, deserted town is old and split,
my thoughts it claims upon the edges of sky's foreign moons,
I saw redemptive souls emerging from the depths of wit,
designs that winters form with interlaced on walls, festoons.
The Mistral blows (my soul), new paths defines and ridges crowns,
inside the dreams embeds the windy drawls and teenage years,
my mind foresees, its state to evolute and be renown,
while my December eyes become, reflectors of cold's tears.
Along those roads, deserted towns become a threaded toy,
of Mistral calls, a song abandoned in a bard's old tale,
unerringly be whistled by the ghosts and gusts' decoy.
alike the blowing winds (my soul), stand tall, in their assail.
She drifts in Mists! A cotton fog and mystery's versed text,
upon a sculptured bark, her promised vision I inhale,
Was I so handsome in her eyes, dimension thus convex,
a splashing wave upon her wharf and she, the night's dark veil?
I saw her form surpassing voices' amplitude and fast
on skyward billows of adjoining rains thenceforth to glide,
was pre-designed and coarse the destiny her beauty passed,
in emptiness wind-gates that led to naught, in fog to hide.
Befallen Angels then transformed time's masquerade to wings,
I saw my soul to stare at the buffoon's dark colored face
Inside the winds, a marionette he was without the strings,
- oh, her aphotic eyes that stared in me, and her dark grace!
© G.V. 10-02-2013 All rights reserved
(Iambic Heptameter rhymed ABAB quatrains. )
__________
3) Aspiration
by Reason Poteet
https://www.poetrysoup.com/poems_poets/poem_detail.aspx?ID=458130
(Iambic Heptameter rhymed couplets. )
__________
4) A poem by Arthur Golding:
Now have I brought a work to end which neither Jove's fierce wrath,
Nor sword, nor fire, nor fretting age with all the force it hath
Are able to abolish quite. Let come that fatal hour
Which (saving of this brittle flesh) hath over me no power,
And at his pleasure make an end of mine uncertain time.
Yet shall the better part of me assured be to climb
Aloft above the starry sky. And all the world shall never
Be able for to quench my name. For look how far so ever
The Roman empire by the right of conquest shall extend,
So far shall all folk read this work. And time without all end
(If poets as by prophecy about the truth may aim)
My life shall everlastingly be lengthened still by fame. (Ovid, Metamorphoses 15.984-95, tr. Golding)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteener_%28poetry%29
(Iambic Heptameter rhymed couplets. )
Two flaws exist on lines 7 and 8. The words "never" and "ever" must be syncopated as "nev'r" and "ev'r". Other than that, it is a beautiful Iambic heptameter poem.