The Power Cut

The Standard Habbie Stanza as used by Robert Burns, among others:   I am in the middle of a Future Learn course on the Scottish bard, and have been intrigued by the structure of eg The Vision. 

The Habbie Stanza consists of six lines of iambic tetrameter, with rhyme pattern aaabab.  The 4^th and 6^th lines are  indented in trimeter:

Eg this rough transcription of stanza 10 from the original manuscript of The Vision by Robert Burns

A hare-brained sentimental trace
Was strongly marked in her face;
A wildly-witty, rustic grace
……….Shone full upon her;
Her eye ev’n turned on empty space,
……….Beamed keen with honor.

I thought I’d have a go at the form for Margo Roby’s Lights Out prompt on power cuts (I believe Americans call these outages).

 
New-met friends were gathered here
at twilight for a game of bridge, where
leg of lamb in oven there
……………….was roasting for our dinner.
There came a bang, the power no more
        ………. left without e’en a glimmer.

 

I gulped and rushed for candles bright;
served the lamb, a bloody sight,
hoping their discretion might
……….forgive the error.
Their middle name Sophisticate
……….had banish’d all my terror.

 

Convivial friends they soon became ─
by candle light we played the game
the shadows not enough for blame,
……….but relishing the shimmer
thrown around by waxen flame
……….and we were chums for ever.

 

The new-met friends were the British High Commissioner to the Republic of Seychelles (equivalent to Ambassador in non-Commonwealth countries) and his wife.  We loved them immediately as H.E., unasked, shed his shoes at the front door on arrival, in accordance with local custom.