Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Poem: "History Returned"

Today's freebie poem was inspired by a prompt from marina_bonomi. The name of this six-line verse form is "Scottish stanza" or "Burns stanza."


History Returned



From Italy to Scotland’s heather
All bent and bowed against the weather
With sword of steel and vest of leather
History returned
To wind their separate fates together
Just as one heart yearned.

To friends who had helped him in his fight
And given him shelter in his flight
The bonnie Prince Charlie, in the night,
Left all that he had
And gave Italians the solemn right
To wear Stuart plaid.
Tags: cyberfunded creativity, ethnic studies, fishbowl, history, poem, poetry, reading, writing
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  • 2 comments

Deleted comment

ysabetwordsmith

Thank you!

ysabetwordsmith

December 2 2009, 02:55:16 UTC 11 years ago

>>Neat! I love it!<<

I'm glad you enjoyed this poem.

>>I may have to try something in Scottish stanza sometime,<<

Ah, you should. It's a lovely form that deserves more attention. Besides, good practice makes good progress.

By the way, today's poetry fishbowl is still open if you want to drop by and give me a prompt.
natf

natf

December 7 2009, 12:47:13 UTC 11 years ago

I like this but am pedantically hung up on the metre and syllable counts per line:

9
9
9
5
10 (I expected it to be 9 and it feels strange to me. *)
5

9
9
9
5
10
5

* The first time I read this I parsed the first stanza's fifth line as nine syllables and the fifth line of the second stanza as 10 which added to my discomfort. Maybe it is an dialect/accent/pronunciation variation between you, the writer and me the reader? I can see "separate" being pronounced with two syllables instead of three ('sep-rut' instead of 'sep-ur-ate') and also "Italians" with three instead of four ('i-tal-yuns' instead of 'i-tal-ee-ans'). Yes, I seem to have convinced myself that this is a pronunciation difference. I bet this happens a lot when poetry crosses the pond (and other seas)!