LIFE’S JOURNEY

TODAY I AM TACKLING A POEM USING THE ‘OTTAVA RIMA’ POETIC FORM.

Originally an Italian stanza of eight 11-syllable lines, with a rhyme scheme of ABABABCC.  Sir Thomas Wyatt first introduced the form in English, and Lord Byron adapted it to a 10-syllable line for his mock-epic ‘Don Juan’.  W.B.Yeatsnotably used it for his poems “Among Scool Children’ and ‘Sailing to Byzantium.’

[ Adapted from http://www.poetryfoundation.org ]

Sir John Everett Millais … ‘The Boyhood of Raleigh’ (1870)

OTTAVA RIMA

LIFE’S JOURNEY

I long to travel through my life again,

To have the same beginning but to change

The choices that have given me such pain

And turn them into something rich and strange;

Transform those scenes to sunshine from the rain,

The order of their happening rearrange.

My hope would be to bring new meaning to

My life-long search for love and joy with you.

W.H.Booth (aka Roland Keld)… 21/5/17