DUTREY

We rarely see the dutrey, but it is not a new form.  Maude Adams of Micanopy, FL, introduced it in 1939 in a magazine titled Reflections.  The form has 17 lines, and opens and closes with identical refrain lines. The rhyme scheme is A1-A2-b-b-b-a-a-c-c-c-a-a-d-d-d-A1-A2.

The meter is trochaic tetrameter.   I think the best remembered poem in that meter is "Hiawatha" by Longfellow.  In his poem, however, the meter seems to march with a somewhat heavier tread than that in the dutrey, or at least in this sample.

Elfin Song

 Elves bestir themselves at night

 When the coral buds are tight.  

See that roguish little gnome

Push the trillium through the loam?

Cock crow bids him scamper home,

At the dawn's first copper light.

When the noon is hot and white

Weaver-fairies may begin — 

Teach the spider how to spin

Delicate and fragile-thin,

Like an elfin thistle-kite

Keeping milkweed fluff in sight.

What a moonlight promenade.

In the fragrant lilac shade

With the goblins on parade!

 Elves bestir themselves at night 

When the coral buds are tight.

                      Margarette Dickson


Try your hand at the dutrey.
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