“Ruins of a Great House” is composed of five stanzas of varying lengths. While it is best defined as a work of free verse—a poem which lacks a strict metrical structure—it often drifts into iambic trimeter or pentameter. These forms use three or five iambs per line, an iamb being a metrical foot consisting of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable. Here is an example of how such a line would scan:

“The rot | re-mains | with us, | the men | are gone” (Line 38)

Walcott’s extensive knowledge of classic English literature makes his decision to abandon a strict form and meter particularly rebellious. Many of the writers Walcott references throughout the poem strictly adhered to traditional forms (Shakespeare and John Milton, for example, are masters of iambic pentameter). By choosing not to use traditional forms, Walcott challenges the canon even as he demonstrates his extensive knowledge of it. His deviation makes room for something new.

Walcott also utilizes enjambment—a poetic device in which a sentence or thought is carried on across line breaks—and varying line lengths to emphasize particular sections or build speed within the poem.

Although “Ruins of a Great House” is essentially a free verse poem—meaning it lacks a strict rhyme scheme—Walcott does use a few true and slant rhymes. A true rhyme matches the stressed vowel sound of both words exactly, while in a slant rhyme, the words sound similar, but not identical.

In the first stanza, “nose” (Line 9) and “groves” (Line 12) demonstrates an apt dissonance between the symbolic rotting limes and Blake's paraphrased poetry. Walcott continues to use rhyme as a way to represent friction and strife throughout the poem. True rhymes like “stone” (Line 13) and “bone” (Line 16) in the second stanza make a resounding statement, while slant rhymes like “mouse” (Line 26) and “abuse” (Line 29) bring special attention to the discord between the smallest creatures like mice and the largest entities like empires.

The rhymes become most perfect in the fourth stanza as the speaker discusses famous historical English figures (e.g. “next,” Line 32, “perplexed,” Line 34, and “text,” Line 37). The rhymes tighten up significantly in the last six lines of the final stanza, with “All in compassion ends/ So differently from what the heart arranged: / ‘as well as if a manor of thy friend’s…” (Lines 51-53) signaling the resolution of the speaker’s feelings.