A New Poetic Form

For a piece of world-building I'm working on, I made up a poetic form called an "aubadina."

An aubade, in real life, is a morning poem, usually about lovers seperating. Think the morning scene in Romeo and Juliet. The aubadina, then, is always an aubade, but has a particular form. It has three stanzas of eight, six, and four lines. They rhyme abacdbdc eefggf hhii, though I will also allow ababcbcb ddbeeb fbfb or abacdbdc eefggf hihi or abacdbdc efegfg hhii or some other subtle variation.

A traditional aubade uses somewhat alliterative accentural meter. There are (usually) five accents per line with any number of syllables. They do not count in feet. Usually, accented syllables begin with the same letter, though this is not strictly followed. It is not iambic or trochaic or amphibrachic or what-have-you, though iambs and trochees may show up in some lines because we're included to hear meter in that way. (The sort of meter I described is common to Middle and Old English poetry.)

I'm here imagining that the aubadina was developed in the city of Aubade (on the river Aubade), where travellers often came and went, such that a poem about parting lovers is appropriate to the environs. This form was popularized and spread under the name aubadina by the afore-mentioned travellers. Among these travellers were a few groups of seasonal nomadic peoples, who adopted the aubadina and developed their own tradition with it. While a classical aubadina usually has one lover remaining in the city while the other must leave, the nomadic aubadina generally has both halves of the couple leaving in different directions, as they are parts of different nomadic groups which occasionally meet. Thus the lovers will meet again whenever their clans do--but that might not be for a while.

Of course, as in the case of sonnets, heroic couplets, etc., different poets will do different things with their aubadinas. Some write religious ones to saints or shrines that they made pilgrimage to and now must leave, others write bawdy ones (like "The Sailor's Farewell to His Lady of Wages"), and others, often scholars, write highly formalized ones in alliterative iambic pentameter. Sometimes they would be written in dialogues, where the lovers alternate lines until the final verse, where they each take one couplet.

You can't see if a form will work unless you've written one. This is, of course, the first aubadina ever written for real, and as such I've just established the conventions as I went along (though you can see I've stolen a lot of Renaissance sonnet ideas because I understand formalized poetry through the lens of Renaissance sonneteers). So conventions include mention of birdsong, reference to the astronomical and meterological phenomenon of dawn, the belief that the dawn dispells evil creatures, jealousy about what lovers are doing in towns, looking at the horizon, concerns of truth and fakeness, and complaining about the passage of time.

Here it is:

The dawn disperses the pale ghosts in the dark,
The purple sky, blushed by the hidden sun,
Weakens, whitens, and wakens the wild lark
Whose serenade stirs the city's new amours
To make those early delights last ‘til the rise
And rush they their rest with their kisses and fun
But we watch the time on the weakening skies
For when the day breaks, so does my road from yours.

The horizon’s rosy and the rooster’s head raises,
Now our tents are folded while the townie lad lazes.
Say that’s not the sun’s lip on the distant knoll,
Put our lips together while that sundog there hangs
A fool of a hound who sells us false pangs
That we feel split when we’re whole.

Say that’s not the green beam breaking the gloam
Hasting us thither to our far wandering homes.
That is not the halo that mimics the star;
That is the mean lark that sends mine afar.

Or, if you want me to mark the stresses for you...

The dawn disperses the pale ghosts in the dark,
The purple sky, blushed by the hidden sun,
Weakens, whitens, and wakens the wild lark
Whose serenade stirs the city's new amours
To make those early delights last ‘til the rise
And rush they their rest with their kisses and fun
But we watch the time on the weakening skies
For when the day breaks, so does my road from yours.

The horizon’s rosy and the rooster’s head raises,
Now our tents are folded while the townie lad lazes.
Say that’s not the sun’s lip on the distant knoll,
Put our lips together while that sundog there hangs
A fool of a hound who sells us false pangs
That we feel split when we’re whole.

Say that’s not the green beam breaking the gloam
Hasting us thither to our far wandering homes.
That is not the halo that mimics the star;
That is the mean lark that sends mine afar.