Villanelle of the third and fifth stanzas. The rhyme-and-refrain pattern of the villanelle can be schematized as AbA abA abA abA abA abAA where letters ("a" and "b") indicate the two rhyme sounds, upper case indicates a refrain ("A"), and superscript numerals ( and ) indicate Refrain 1 and Refrain 2. The pattern is below set against "Do not go gentle into that good night" by Dylan Thomas: The villanelle has no established meter, although most 19th-century villanelles have used trimeter or tetrameter and most 20th-century villanelles have used pentameter. Slight alteration of the refrain line is permissible. With reference to
Come, Gentle Night! Come, Gentle Night! "Come, Gentle Night!" is a poem by Clifton Bingham set to music by the English composer Edward Elgar in 1901. It is a song for soprano voice, the title page advertising that it was sung by Madame Clara Butt. The song was written at the same time as Elgar's "Cockaigne", and published in 1901 by Boosey & Co. in London and New York. In his book on Elgar, Thomas Dunhill criticised this and others of his songs, finding it "...almost unbelievable that a composer of such power and distinction should have been willing to attach his name