I am trying to include a stanza of poetry with a multicolumn environment such that there is no break in the lines of the poem.
I had hoped that
\settowidth{\versewidth}{}
\begin{verse}[\versewidth]
would do this for me. But it hasn't.
Consider the MWE:
\documentclass{book}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{verse}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{multicol}
\setlength{\columnsep}{1cm}
\begin{document}
\begin{multicols}{2}
\lipsum[3]
\settowidth{\versewidth}{Behind the clouds the sun is shining}
\begin{verse}[\versewidth]
\begin{footnotesize}
\textbf{\textcolor{red}{Be still sad heart. stop repining, \\
Behind the clouds the sun is shining; \\
Yours is the common fate of all--- \\
Into each life some rain must fall.}}
\end{footnotesize}
\end{verse}
\end{multicols}
\end{document}
with the output
Since I am using the footnotesize
font for the verses, it seems there should be enough room under the paragraph to accomplish this, but this is not the case.
QUESTION: How may I increase the default width of the verse environment so that each line of verse appears unbroken under the paragraph? In this case, I am not opposed if the longest line extends slightly beyond the width of the column—although I'm not sure LaTeX will permit this.
Thank you.
Best Answer
Use
\settowidth{\versewidth}{\footnotesize \bfseries Behind the clouds the sun is shining}
to measure the right length of the longest line.It was close call. The column width is 158.27 pt.
The verse width without
\bfseries
nor\footnotesize
is 158.97pt, slightly larger.The correct verse width is 156.21 pt.