In a traditional Sestina the lines are grouped into six sestets (6lines per stanza) and a concluding tercet (3 lines).

Thus a Sestina has 39 lines. Lines may be of any length, usually consistent in a single poem, but traditionally in hexameter (Six metric feet. Each foot is two syllables.

Ex: return / ing to / conven / tional / iam / bic bliss).

The six words that end each of the lines of the first stanza are repeated in a different order at the end of each of the subsequent five stanzas. The particular pattern is given below.

The repeated words are unrhymed. The first line of each sestet, after the first, ends with the same word as the one that ended the last line of the sestet before it.

In the closing tercet, each of the six words are used, with one in the middle of each line and one at the end.

The pattern of word-repetition is as follows, where the words that end the lines of the first sestet are represented by the numbers "1 2 3 4 5 6":

1 2 3 4 5 6 - End words of lines in first sestet.

6 1 5 2 4 3 - End words of lines in second sestet.

3 6 4 1 2 5 - End words of lines in third sestet.

5 3 2 6 1 4 - End words of lines in fourth sestet.

4 5 1 3 6 2 - End words of lines in fifth sestet.

2 4 6 5 3 1 - End words of lines in sixth sestet.

(6 2) (1 4) (5 3) - Middle and end words of lines in tercet.

EXAMPLE:

Sestina

by Elizabeth Bishop

September rain falls on the house.

In the failing light, the old grandmother

sits in the kitchen with the child

beside the Little Marvel Stove,

reading the jokes from the almanac,

laughing and talking to hide her tears.

She thinks that her equinoctial tears

and the rain that beats on the roof of the house

were both foretold by the almanac,

but only known to a grandmother.

The iron kettle sings on the stove.

She cuts some bread and says to the child,

It's time for tea now; but the child

is watching the teakettle's small hard tears

dance like mad on the hot black stove,

the way the rain must dance on the house.

Tidying up, the old grandmother

hangs up the clever almanac

on its string. Birdlike, the almanac

hovers half open above the child,

hovers above the old grandmother

and her teacup full of dark brown tears.

She shivers and says she thinks the house

feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove.

It was to be, says the Marvel Stove.

I know what I know, says the almanac.

With crayons the child draws a rigid house

and a winding pathway. Then the child

puts in a man with buttons like tears

and shows it proudly to the grandmother.

But secretly, while the grandmother

busies herself about the stove,

the little moons fall down like tears

from between the pages of the almanac

into the flower bed the child

has carefully placed in the front of the house.

Time to plant tears, says the almanac.

The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove

and the child draws another inscrutable house

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