One of the oldest and simplest poetic forms is the couplet. A couplet is made up of two metrical lines that rhyme and that express a complete idea. The first verse of "Jesus Loves Me" is made up of two couplets.
Jesus loves me, this I know,
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong,
They are weak but He is strong.
Here are a few couplets by famous authors. What do you think they mean?
Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
(William Shakespeare, from Romeo & Juliet)
For all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
(John Greenleaf Whittier, from "Maud Muller")
The world is so full of a number of things
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.
(Robert Louis Stevenson)
Here are some silly couplets.
The Lord in His wisdom made the fly
And then forgot to tell us why.
(Ogden Nash)
I have the measles and the mumps,
a gash, a rash, and purple bumps.
(Shel Silverstein)
Do you have any Dr. Seuss books? Dr. Seuss wrote almost completely in couplets. Can you think of a couplet from your favorite Dr. Seuss book?
Today, let's try to write a couplet. Pick a person, a food you love or hate, an animal (maybe your pet), or something else, and see if you can write a couplet about it. Maybe you can write more than one!
3 comments:
And it should be, it should be, it should be like that
Because Horton was faithful. He sat and he sat.
This holy week is now in flight -
and so I have no time to write!
From Evan:
"Odie is a silly dog.
His mind is clouded in a fog.
Garfield is a chubby cat.
He is so unbelievably fat."
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