The Welsh ae freislighe (no clue about pronunciation) is the second named form in Lewis Turco's original Book of Forms. My mother has the Bible which belonged to my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, and his father, Thomas Philips, came from Wales. Apparently that's too distant a connection for something like this to come easily to me:
A Cup of Kindness
Lily spurned all meagerness.
She loved her whiskey neat, her
Lovers wan — their eagerness
To please her made them sweeter.
When they'd ceased to lavish her
With lust and verse, she burned all
Poems meant to ravish her —
With whiskey Lily spurned all.
For those of you who who don't have Turco's little orange book (or the later big black edition still available), here's the schema:
x x x x (x x a)
x x x x x (x b)
x x x x (x x a)
x x x x x (x b)
Like most Welsh forms, it's syllabic, seven syllables per line. Lines 1 and 3 end-rhyme on three syllables, and lines 2 and 4 on two syllables. As in many Gaelic forms, an ae freislighe should end with the line, phrase, or word which began the poem.
I've put the drafts up at the Draft House. Did I say this was hard? I'll need a cup of kindness before I move on to alcaics.
6:55:19 PM 
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