Types of Poetry

A Few Examples

Limerick

A Bridge Engineer, Mr. Crumpett, Anonymous

A bridge engineer, Mr. Crumpett,
Built a bridge for the good River Bumpett.
A mistake in the plan
Left a gap in the span,
But he said, “Well, they'll just have to jump it.”

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Elegy

from Ave Atque Vale, Algernon Charles Swinburne

XVIII
For thee, O now a silent soul, my brother,
Take at my hands this garland, and farewell.
Thin is the leaf, and chill the wintry smell,
And chill the solemn earth, a fatal mother,
With sadder than the Niobean womb,
And in the hollow of her breasts a tomb.
Content thee, howsoe'er, whose days are done;
There lies not any troublous thing before,
Nor sight nor sound to war against thee more,
For whom all winds are quiet as the sun,
All waters as the shore.

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Rhymed Stanza

Every Grain of Sand, Bob Dylan

In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need
When the pool of tears beneath my feet flood every
Newborn seed.
There's a dying voice within me reaching out somewhere
Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair.

Don't have the inclination to look back on any mistake.
Like Cain, I now behold this chain of events that I must break.
In the fury of the moment I can see the Master's hand.
In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand.

Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear.
Like criminals, they have choked the breath
Of conscience and good cheer.
But the sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way
To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay.

I gaze into the doorway of temptation's angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name.
Then onward in my journey I come to understand
That every hair is numbered, like every grain of sand.

I have gone from rags to riches in the sorrow of the night
In the violence of a summer's dream, in the chill of a
Wintry night
In the bitter dance of loneliness fading into space
In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face.

I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there's someone there, other times it's
Only me.
I am hanging in the balance of a perfect finished plan
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.

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Haiku

If Not for the Cat, Jack Prelutsky

If not for the cat,
And the scarcity of cheese,
I could be content.

Source: If Not for the Cat (HarperCollins Publishers Inc, 2004).

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Quatrain

from The Rubaiyat, Omar Khayyam

Myself when young did eagerly frequent,
doctor and saint, and heard great argument,
About it and about: but evermore
Came out be the same door where in I went.

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