Sapphic stanza Sapphic stanza The Sapphic stanza, named after Sappho, is an Aeolic verse form spanning four lines (originally three: in the poetry of Sappho and Alcaeus, there is no line-end before the final Adonean). The form is two hendecasyllabic verses, and a third verse beginning the same way and continuing with five additional syllables (given as the stanza's fourth verse in ancient and modern editions, and known as the Adonic or adonean line). Using "-" for a long syllable, "u" for a short and "x" for an "anceps" (or free syllable), and displaying the Adonic as a fourth line: While Sappho
Syllabic verse "flowers" (a w-glide) as 1. Because these lines are longer, irregular, and frequently enjambed ("as the / dead fountains"), it is quite clear that the symmetry of syllables is not meant to be audible. Moore's use of end-rhyme is telling. Only 2 lines in each stanza are rhymed: these are "emphasized" for the reader by indentation, but "hidden" from the listener by radical enjambment ("fawn- / brown" and "coxcomb- / tinted"). Elizabeth Daryush, known for her use of syllabic verse, used the quaternion form for her celebrated syllabic verse poem 'Accentedal'. The modern French language does not have a significant