er 226).
A villanelle is a fixed nineteen line form, originally French, using only two rhymes and repeating two of the lines according to a set pattern. The rhyme scheme is aba aba aba aba aba abaa. The poem we are analyzing ends in a couplet. The basic meter is iambic pentameter. Thus, the poem consists of tercets with a closing quatrain. This type of verse was originally a round song of farm laborers. The name villanelle is derived from the Latin word villa, or farm. Medieval French villanelles were irregular in form, but during the sixteenth century the form became fixed as it is known today. The villanelle lends itself to seriousness, as wall as lighter moods (Wood 87).
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