Madrigal Muse

A ripple stream flowed steadfastly through snow
and came out on the other side of spring,
its bubbles lit by sunshine, brightly sparkling.

A faithful friend, in winter it was slow,
a muse on chilly days while walking;
a ripple stream flowed steadfastly through snow
and came out on the other side of spring.

My lover waits down where the willows grow,
my steps are light, my heart begins to sing,
on Sunday mornings when the church bells ring.
A ripple stream flowed steadfastly through snow
and came out on the other side of spring,
its bubbles lit by sunshine, brightly sparkling.

Kim M. Russell, 20th February 2025

‘Lovers Seated at the Foot of a Willow Tree’, Camille Pissarro, 1901

This Thursday at the dVerse Poets Pub we are meeting the bar with Grace and a new poetry form: the English madrigal.

Grace tells us that “the English Madrigal is one of many varieties of the Italian madrigal, an early lyric form that began as a pastoral song. Medieval author and poet Geoffrey Chaucer (The Canterbury Tales) defined the rules of the madrigal in English, which include a number of formal requirements, including meter, end rhyme, and several repeated refrains. Some of the best-regarded English language madrigals are those of Scottish poet William Drummond, who wrote eighty madrigals in his collection Poems (1616)”.

She also lays out clearly the key features of the English madrigal, which often includes a theme of love, is usually written in iambic pentameter, and is made up of three stanzas: a tercet, a quatrain, and a sestet, in which all three of the lines in the opening tercet are refrains. It is, therefore, a thirteen-line form in three stanzas with a set rhyme scheme. Tricky! Grace has given an example to help us. I went for something traditional.

33 thoughts on “Madrigal Muse”

  2. The thought of spring warms my heart like sunshine. This was a bit tricky to write but love your madrigal muse. The last stanza is my favorite with the 3 lines seamlessly weaving in.

    A ripple stream flowed steadfastly through snow
    and came out on the other side of spring,
    its bubbles lit by sunshine, brightly sparkling.

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  3. Kim,
    I could sing this along. Beautiful. I especially like these lines,
    “A ripple stream flowed steadfastly through snow
    and came out on the other side of spring,”
    I am always drawn to moving water.
    I got the feeling from this that if we just keep going we will be ok.

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  11. A lovely madrigal Kim and it made me think of Janis Ian’s At Seventeen – to paraphrase “inventing lovers in a poem” – sorry, couldn’t resist…

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