Chris, I could almost have written that! Adolescence can be rather protracted, you know.
Break, Break, Break and
To Anne Gregory are two of my favourites.
I have quite a few of my own that are tet/tri mixtures, but
I find I’ve attempted little in trimeter alone. The few I’ve written in that measure are on the light side. I posted
Interruptus in the TDE a while back.
INTERRUPTUS
I dined with her under the stars
and, it may be, false pretences.
To the strains of twin guitars
I tried to keep my defences.
It was chance that our fingers met
while the
pollo and
tortellini
mingled in saucy duet —
chance, or the third Martini.
It was drink, or so I insist,
or the music that loosened us up;
still I held to my plan to resist,
to sideslip the proffered cup.
But come the zabaglione,
I wondered — what had we begun?
And fretting she’d think me a phoney,
I was very nearly undone.
Then
Baci were brought to the table,
sweet kisses that made me unwise
and led (my resolve was unstable)
to an intercourse of eyes.
Her lips moistened and parted,
she hung on my words, held them tight;
I’d need to be hard, hard-hearted
to withdraw with a simple goodnight.
But I did it: I left and I kissed her,
a kiss more fleeting than deep,
and though it was hell to resist her,
we went to our separate sleep.
....
Nervous? Who, me?
Also on the light side, I and a number of others attempted, in
this recent Fun Exercise to match the trimeter of Edward Lear’s
How Pleasant to Know Mr Lear . Mine is
How Pleasant to Tipple with Quince. I won’t try your patience by reposting all eight stanzas here. Perhaps just these two which pretty well sum me up:
He sits with his wine by the ocean
And thinks about wenches he’s known;
He walks with a bouncy mocean
And despises the portable phown.
.................... *
He can bash out a tune on the keys
In a rough imitation of Monk;
He’s ravished by sky and by treys,
But the ladies now need to be dronk.
Henry