What is the form of this poem? I think it's an ode? or is it freeverse? help?

A Winter Night


By: Sara Teasdale








My window-pane is starred with frost,


The world is bitter cold to-night,


The moon is cruel, and the wind


Is like a two-edged sword to smite.





God pity all the homeless ones,


The beggars pacing to and fro,


God pity all the poor to-night


Who walk the lamp-lit streets of snow.





My room is like a bit of June,


Warm and close-curtained fold on fold,


But somewhere, like a homeless child,


My heart is crying in the cold.

What is the form of this poem? I think it's an ode? or is it freeverse? help?
not freeverse. it's rhyme and meter. each two lines have exactly 16 beats (count them). the 32nd beat rhymes with the 16th beat. (night and smite). yeh, i kind of think it's like an ode, because it's very structured and formal and has a "grand" theme that, i would describe it in this way, ties the musings of one individual to the plight of all humanity, i.e. it takes the personal, subjective, emotional feelings we all have and relates them to God, nature and mankind. it "universalizes" the "individual". that's pretty "odish". but Sara lived and wrote I think after the great period of classical odes had passed. She's described as a "American lyrical" poet", which just raises another question, "What's that?" i had to go to wikipedia.





"Lyric poetry refers to either poetry that has the form and musical quality of a song, or a usually short poem that expresses personal feelings, which may or may not be set to music.[1] Aristotle, in Poetics, contrasted lyric poetry with drama and epic poetry. An example would be a poem that expresses feelings and maybe a song that could be performed to an audience."





Also, on Sara,





"Sara Teasdale (August 8, 1884 – January 29, 1933), was an American lyrical poet. She was born Sarah Trevor Teasdale in St. Louis, Missouri.





"Teasdale's major themes were love, nature's beauty, and death, and her poems were much loved during the early 20th century. In 1918, she won the Columbia University Poetry Society prize (the forerunner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry) and the annual prize of the Poetry Society of America for her volume, Love Songs. Her style and lyricism are well illustrated in her poem, "Spring Night" (1915), from that collection."





you can, of course, read the rest yourself if you want to. I hope i answered a little bit of your question!
Reply:It's definately not freeverse, but it may be an ode.
Reply:Doesn't sound like a ode really, more like a freeverse.