[Edward Zuk]

I think that Andrew brings up an important point. Coleridge’s distinction seems comprehensive at first glance, but there are poems—some of the greatest—that are hard to fit into the organic / mechanical categories. There’s also the complication that “mechanical” did not imply mindless, machine-like behaviour for Coleridge like it does for us. He would have used the word to describe the work of a skilled craftsman or artisan. Was Dante being a supremely skilled craftsman in coming up with the terza rima, or did the divine origins of the world necessitate its invention? That’s not clear, at least to me. [Edited in to add: I'm more than happy to be swayed by Andrew's arguments that the terza rima is organic, but at the least there's a cogent case to be made for the other side.]

In contrast, here’s an explication of a poem that shows organic form, Byron’s “When we two parted.”

WHEN we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

Byron’s subject is the end of a secret love and the narrator’s uncertainty about how to act and feel now that the beloved has been caught and ruined in another affair. The uncertainty comes through in the metre. Some lines begin with an unstressed syllable, others don’t. When the reader comes to a new line, there’s a slight hesitation about what’s to be stressed. The verse takes on an improptu, halting quality as a result, which matches the narrator’s state of mind.

Also, look at lines 5 and 8—there’s an extra foot. The kiss is “cold,” a fact so important that it’s repeated at the beginning of the next line. It’s as if the detail is forcing itself in.

The poem continues:

The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow—
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame:
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me—
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well:
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met—
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.

Note that the poem goes on to establish a pattern in stanzas 2 and 3: there’s a single unstressed syllable at the beginning of each line, two feet, and an extra unstressed syllable at the end of lines 1, 3, 5, and 7 of each stanza. As long as he’s not dwelling on that moment of the lover’s unfaithfulness to him, he can deliver his internal monologue with some degree of regularity and composure. In stanza four, though, the memories return to that hurtful moment (the stutter on ‘that thy heart’), and the uncertainty returns.

There’s a lot more that I could point out about the poem besides the metre, like the repetitions, especially with the pronouns, which border on obsessive. But I think I’ve said enough to show that the form is adapted to the demands of the verse.

One final observation: I find it easier to view a form as being “organic” if it shows some variation or irregularities in a pattern. I can then justify the deviations as being an adaptation to the inner logic of the poem. A perfect regularity always makes me think of the poet and the skill behind the lines.