Poetry Definitions

by Willard R. Espy from Words To Rhyme With

4.  Metric Line 

    You have seen that the beat of iambic verse is da da; of trochaic, da da; of anapestic, da da da; of dactylic, da da da; of amphibrachic, da da da. I may also have suggested if so it is worth repeating---that lines in any meter will almost never scan perfectly when read aloud with normal emphasis.  That is a good thing; an unfaltering beat would be unbearably monotonous.  Look at Elizabeth Barrett Browning's famous line:

How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways.

     That is iambic pentameter---in theory, five da da beats in a row.  Forced into Procrustes's bed, it would come out like this:

How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways.

    But in fact that line is not iambic at all.  It is lucky even to be a pentameter, with five feet, no more, no less; Mrs. Browning, like any other sensible poet, would not have hesitated to add or drop a syllable or so for the greater glory of the line.  It begins, in my ear, with a dactyl, continues with three trochess, and concludes with a long iamb.  The reader adjusts the stress automatically to the sense of the message, while allowing maximum sweetness to the flow of sound.  Yet it is considered an iambic line.  So are Shakespeare's  pentameters, any one of which co-opts the beat most suitable for the moment within the overall iambic framework.

A.  The Beat and Length of Poetic Lines

     A metric foot is a single beat of sound requiring a stressed syllable (except for those ridiculous pyrrhics, which don't count).  It may have one, two, or more unstressed syllables, or it may have none.  A line of poetry comprising a single foot is a monometer.  Two feet make a dimeter; three, a trimeter; four, a tetrameter; five, a pentameter; six, a hexameter; seven, a heptameter.  And that is as far as there is any likely reason to go.  Lines come in all the metric beats that have been mentioned.  Here are iambic, trochaic, anapestic and dactylic examples:

Monometer:
Iambic:               A gain (or simply gain).
Trochaic:           Ho'ly
Anapestic:         In the night.
Dactylic:            Bear' a . ble.

Dimeter:
Iambic:              They fled   a . way.
Trochaic:          Feet that stum' ble.
Anapestic:         In a song that she sang.
Dactylic:            El . ea . nor  Roo' se . velt.

Trimeter:
Iambic:               I watched a sink 'ing star.
Trochaic:          Fa'ther, call the doc'tor.
Anapestic:        When the dark shall turn bright as the day.
Dactylic:           Why does the teach 'er keep shout 'ing so?

Tetrameter:
Iambic:               The crows have fall' en si' lent now.
Trochaic:          In the ram'age of the elm tree.
Anapestic:        And the ech'o now fades in the streets; he is gone.
Dactylic:           Cor' al sand un' der them, pur' ple sky o' ver them.

Pentameter:
Iambic:               I know one won'der that will nev'er cease.
Trochaic:          Then the tel' e . phone'  will cease to jin' gle.
Anapestic:         Do not speak in that voice; it will troub'le the wom'en
                             a . sleep.
Dactylic:            No, I'm a . fraid I'm not read'y to give to that char' i . ty.

Hexameter:
Iambic:               The riv' er   wat' er is no long' er run' ning clear.
Trochaic:           Sis' ters, let us raise a cup to ab' sent  Ma . ry.
Anapestic:         We were walk' ing on cob'bles; I think that my feet 
                             will   be  aching to . mor . row.
Dactylic:            Call in the preach' er; I sud' den . ly wish to be wed' ded
                              to  Jon' a . than.

Heptameter:
Iambic:                Men looked at him, and by their look he knew he neared
                             the end.
Trochaic:           What is on this eve' nings tel' e . vis' ion that's worth 
                             watch' ing?
Anapestic:         Though I find it a long and un . like' ly ac . count,  yet  I
                             somehow  be . lieve it is true.
Dactylic:            Out of the pas' sion of  Le' da, there's on' ly  a  feath'er
                             re . main' ing for mem' o . ry.

   Not many poets have composed consistently graceful lines in t dactylic heptameter.  To try is excellent training, though, and you have as good a chance as anyone else of being the one who succeeds. Shown below are verses in the four most common metric beats, ranging in length from one metric foot to seven.

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