LESSON 1	Activity 1

Rhyming Verse. There are several kinds of rhyming verse. Every other line may rhyme, or each pair of lines may rhyme, or rhymes may be two or more lines apart.

There was a time... There was a time when all waters ran clean and fish leaped from every stream to catch the hovering mayfly. There was a time when birds and bees stirred summer air with wings of ease, but now that time has gone by. The time I've known, and seen, and felt, has been a time when man have dealt with the world like a belligerent child. In the name of the great money race, they've taken Earth's pristine face, and with muck, and smoke, and oil, defiled. Still I pray for the time to come, when recleansed water sparkles in the sun, and the moon shines down sublime on a world that was lost and found, and we can all feel justified and proud, to tell of the passing of that former time.

Free Verse. Poetry does not always rhyme or even follow a particular format. Free verse poems do not follow any rules.

The pond was a mirror this morning, and mists seeped up from the hollows. The trees are by now almost bare of leaves, and inside, the clocks that tick away the seconds of my life, seemed to slow. I walked out into the quiet morn, listening to the drip drip of last night's rain falling from the forest roof. Trickles of little brooks that appear only at magical times such as this rang like bells over the rocks, and soothing the static of my everyday thoughts, put the rest of the world on hold.

Poems by: Mark Burch, Nathan Chronister, and Aaron Bennett.

Poetry Home