A Quatern 

This poem was written as a response to a challenge at the Poetry for the People group in Hastings, February 2024.  

Quatern Poetic Form Rules 

1. This poem has 16 lines broken up into 4 quatrains (or 4-line stanzas). 

2. Each line is comprised of eight syllables. 

3. The first line is the refrain. In the second stanza, the refrain appears in the second line; in the third stanza, the third line; in the fourth stanza, the fourth (and final) line. 

4. There are no rules for rhyming or iambics. 

Does a dragonfly weigh more than your soul?

The day the devil weighs your soul 
Will the scales tip in your favour? 
Are you destined for hell’s deep hole 
Or is heaven yours to savour? 

Will your conscience trouble you on 
The day the devil weighs your soul? 
Have your slim chances all but gone 
Before the bells begin to toll? 

A dragonfly waits on the bowl 
Of the scales, to compare your weight.
The day the devil weighs your soul 
Can not arrive a day too late.

But it must come for all of us;
There is no appeal, no parole,
No writ of habeas corpus 
The day the devil weighs your soul. 

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