Poetry has always played a very important role in the history of Syriac literature, and even today, collections of poems by contemporary authors continue to appear. Verse can often also serve as the vehicle for instruction, the most notable example of which is the thirteenth-century polymath Bar 'Ebroyo's verse Grammar. But, it is above all in the writings of some of the great authors of the fourth to sixth centuries, and in the liturgical tradition, that Syriac poetry has found its finest expression. This article discusses Ephrem' s madrashe, metres, the narrative memre, dialogue poems, the later liturgical traditions, and translation into and out of Greek.