Alexandrine Couplets

 

 

Type: Structure; Meter; Rhyme scheme.

Structure: An alexandrine is a line of iambic hexameter, so an alexandrine couplet is two rhymed lines of such. These often come at the end of stanzas or poems and, in these cases, are also called codas

Meter: Iambic hexameter.

Rhyme: aa bb cc etc.

Example: Alexandrine Couplet by Jan Haag

A dark and gloomy day, pigmented by the moon --
who failed to set, who failed to leave, who would not swoon

into the thickness of the night, into the cloud
that dark, with glimmering rim, invited like a shroud

of sacrilegious candles lit to shine along
the way of strange behaviour, odd, eccentric, strong

and motivated, misalignment, across the dune
which even the isolated, lonely, haunted loon

forsook, and pushed its dark head into the lake, bowed
by the shocking ineptitude of time banging and loud

-- ended inevitably in darkness to prolong
what would otherwise end with a resounding gong.