[tex-eplain] Poetry environment

[John Frampton]

Is this what you want?

\def\beginpoem{\bgroup
    \tabskip=0pt plus 1fil
    \halign to\hsize\bgroup\tabskip=1em plus1fil
       ##\hfil& ##\hfil\tabskip=0pt plus1fil\cr
}
\def\endpoem{\egroup\egroup}

\beginpoem
I wandered lonely as a cloud&
    Continuous as the stars that shine\cr
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,&
    And twinkle on the milky way,\cr
When all at once I saw a crowd,&
    They stretched in never-ending line\cr
A host, of golden daffodils;&
    Along the margin of a bay:\cr
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,&
    Ten thousand saw I at a glance,\cr
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.&
    Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.\cr
\endpoem

- John Frampton

Adam Fenn wrote:
> On 7 Sept 2008, at 14:16, Adam Fenn wrote:
> 
> I've been using \halign to typeset some poetry so that the poem
> is centered on the longest line and can also cross page breaks.
> I would like to use eplain's user-defined environment to bundle this
> into \poem \endpoem environment, but I've had no success so far.
> Any suggestions?
> 
> A year and a half later and I eventually solved this myself.   
>             
> \def\poem{\environment{@poem}%
> \begingroup\bigskip
> \let\par=\cr \obeylines
> \tabskip=0pt   plus 1fil
> \halign to\hsize\bgroup%
> ##\hfil}
> 
> \def\endpoem{%
> \egroup
> \endgroup\bigskip\endenvironment{@poem}%
> }
> 
> 
> \poem
> I wandered lonely as a cloud
> That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
> When all at once I saw a crowd,
> A host, of golden daffodils;
> Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
> Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
> 
> Continuous as the stars that shine
> And twinkle on the milky way,
> They stretched in never-ending line
> Along the margin of a bay:                                 
> Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
> Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
> \endpoem
> 
> As this is based upon a simple table macro would it be possible to do 
> the same for the following
> table which typesets a poem in parallel? The idea is to have the 
> original on the left and a translation on the right - simple enough for 
> a stanza but rather tedious for a long poem.
> 
> \tabskip=0pt plus1fil{\halign to\hsize{\tabskip=1em plus1fil
> #\hfil&#\hfil\tabskip=0pt plus1fil\cr
> I wandered lonely as a cloud&Continuous as the stars that shine\cr
> That floats on high o'er vales and hills,&And twinkle on the milky way,\cr
> When all at once I saw a crowd,&They stretched in never-ending line\cr
> A host, of golden daffodils;&Along the margin of a bay:\cr
> Beside the lake, beneath the trees,&Ten thousand saw I at a glance,\cr
> Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.&Tossing their heads in sprightly 
> dance.\cr
> }}
> 
> TIA
> Adam.