What is the effect of a one verse poem with rhyming couplets?
Browning’s poem is a “one verse” poem only because he didn’t break it up after each couplet. The skill of this poet is that the rhyming couplets don’t come off as being too “rhymy” or “contrived” because he enjambs the lines…in other words, the lines are not hard “end-stopped” rhymes. For example, Roses are red, violets blue Grapes are sweet, apples are too This couplet sounds rhymy because each line “ends” the thought, whereas Browning’s lines go like this, That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf’s hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Notice how lines 2 and 3 continue into the next line? That’s called “enjambment” and it allows the poet to create couplets that when read go all but unnoticed. It also keeps the poem sounding like rhymed poetry, but in a more subtle way that isn’t too harsh or childish on the ear. The poem almost reads as prose, but it has sufficient poetic elements to make it an
