4-Line, 4-Foot Rhyming Trochaic Verse!

[Smartypants]

Are we ready for a new communal verse game?

Here are the instructions. PLEASE READ CAREFULLY!

"Trochaic verse" follows a strict rhythm based on the trochee, or two syllables, one accented, one not. To whit:

TUM ta

We will be writing collaborative four-foot trochaic lines with EIGHT syllables, as in:

TUM ta / TUM ta / TUM ta / TUM ta

A good example of four-foot trochaic verse is Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha:

Remember, "TUM ta / TUM ta / TUM ta / TUM ta":

By the shores of Gitchee Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.

ACCEPTABLE VARIATION:

The one acceptable variation on this is to drop the last, UNaccented syllable so that there are only SEVEN syllables total:

TUM ta / TUM ta / TUM ta / TUM

A good example, the witches' incantation from MacBeth:

Round about the cauldron go;
In the poisoned entrail throw
Toad, that under co-uld stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Sweltered venom sleeping got
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.

AND, in this thread, each finished verse will contain only FOUR lines, and they will RHYME using an ABAB rhyme scheme. In other words, lines one and three will rhyme, and lines two and four will rhyme.

example:

I am making up this trifle
Just to make ze monkeys pissy
Hope one don't take up a rifle
Rather they just call me sissy.

NOTE: Whoever writes the first line determines if the lines will be seven or eight syllables, and authors of the next three lines MUST follow suit.

Are we ready? (I knew you were getting tired of limericks.)

Let's begin. Remember! TUM ta / TUM ta / TUM ta / TUM ta /:


I am but a humble poet




Thanks to Clement Wood's The Complete Rhyming Dictionary for the inspiration and description.