Villanelle Examples

Villanelle is a specific type of poem with 19 lines. It also has a very specific form. There are five tercets, or five groups of three lines each. Each of the tercets has an ABA rhyme scheme. At the end, there is a qautrain, or a group of four lines. The quatrain has a rhymed couplet at the end.

In addition, there are lines that repeat in a villanelle. See the pattern below:

Repeated Line 1 (A)

Line 2 (B)

Repeated Line 2 (A)

Line 4 (A)

Line 5 (B)

Repeated Line 1 (A)

Line 7 (A)

Line 8 (B)

Repeated Line 2 (A)

Line 10 (A)

Line 11 (B)

Repeated Line 1 (A)

Line 13 (A)

Line 14 (B)

Repeated Line 2 (A)

Line 16 (A)

Line 17 (B)

Repeated Line 1 (A)

Repeated Line 2 (A)

See villanelle examples below.

From James Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"

Are you not weary of ardent ways,

Lure of the fallen seraphim?

Tell no more of enchanted days.

Your eyes have set man's heart ablaze

And you have had your will of him.

Are you not weary of ardent ways?

Above the flame the smoke of praise

Goes up from ocean rim to rim.

Tell no more of enchanted days.

Our broken cries and mournful lays

Rise in one eucharistic hymn.

Are you not weary of ardent ways?

While sacrificing hands upraise

The chalice flowing to the brim,

Tell no more of enchanted days.

And still you hold our longing gaze

With languorous look and lavish limb!

Are you not weary of ardent ways?

Tell no more of enchanted days.

Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

"When I Saw You Last, Rose" by Austin Dobson

When I saw you last, Rose,

You were only so high;-

How fast the time goes!

Like a bud ere it blows,

You just peeped at the sky,

When I saw you last, Rose!

Now your petals unclose,

Now your May-time is nigh;-

How fast the time goes!

And a life,-how it grows!

You were scarcely so shy

When I saw you last, Rose!

In your bosom it shows

There's a guest on the sly;

How fast the time goes!

Is it Cupid? Who knows!

Yet you used not to sigh,

When I saw you last, Rose;-

How fast the time goes!