An Ode to Solitude.

My third tribute is to one of the most favorite poets of my childhood, the nature poet, William Wordsworth (1770-1850).

I have chosen these prompts from three of his poems to pen my verse.

Act of stealth

Troubled pleasure

Silent water

Trembling oars

Measured motion

Sparkling waves

Tempestuous time

Tenderness of thought.

Benign is Solitude

(Poem: The Prelude)

Vales and hills

(Poem: Daffodils)

Melancholy strain

(Poem: The Solitary Reaper)

I have written this ode in the Terza Rima rhyme scheme of poetry. I first read about this scheme in a famous poem by P.B.Shelley, called ‘The Ode to the West Wind’ and was compelled to attempt a similar scheme for one of my own poems.

In a terza rima poem, the first and third lines of a stanza rhyme, but the first line of the next stanza rhymes with the second line of the stanza before it. So, the stanzas would look like A-B-A, B-C-B, C-D-C, and so on, with each letter representing the rhyming words. 

***

A flow of ink,

for Wordsworth's Prelude;

To marvel & think

in poetic magnitude!

An Ode to Solitude

An act of stealth, in troubled pleasure

amidst vales & hills, on a moonlit night,

a quest for peace, an intangible treasure;

Sparkling waves, no horizon in sight,

rising tides, the boat doth slaughter,

adrift eastward, sails in flight;

A churn of memories, in the mind’s mortar,

the heart seeks harmony, all in vain

but all is tranquil, in silent water;

Tempestuous time, wreaks a melancholy strain,

shining waters sliced by trembling oars,

toss of tempests in the brain;

Singed soul, in voiceless roars,

plaintive pursuits of a pensive mood,

no conscious memory of distant shores.

Measured motion unearths quietude;

the weary will discovers tenderness of thought

for in blessed nature, benign is solitude.

***

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