China - Couplet

In Chinese poetry, a couplet is a pair of lines of poetry which adhere to certain rules. Outside of poems, they are usually seen on the sides of doors leading to people's homes. A special, widely-seen type of couplet is the spring couplet, used as a New Year's decoration that expresses happy and hopeful thoughts for the coming year.

Sent by Heather, a postcrosser from Shanghai, China.

This is from Wikipedia : A couplet is a pair of lines of meter in poetry. It usually consists of two lines that rhyme and have the same meter.

While traditionally couplets rhyme, not all do. A poem may use white space to mark out couplets if they do not rhyme. Couplets with a meter of iambic pentameter are called heroic couplets. The Poetic epigram is also in the couplet form. Couplets can also appear in more complex rhyme schemes. For example, Shakespearean sonnets end with a couplet.

Rhyming couplets are one of the simplest rhyme schemes in poetry. Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales are written in rhyming couplets. John Dryden in the 16-17th century and Alexander Pope in the 18th century were both well known for their writing in heroic couplets.

Because the rhyme comes so quickly in rhyming couplets, it tends to call attention to itself. Good rhyming couplets tend to "explode" as both the rhyme and the idea come to a quick close in two lines.