A Handbook of the English Language

by R. G. Latham

Beyond their utmost purple rim,

And deep into the dying day

The happy princess follow'd him.—Tennyson.

4. Octosyllabic triplets.—Three rhymes in succession. Generally arranged as stanzas.

I blest them, and they wander'd on;

I spoke, but answer came there none;

The dull and bitter voice was gone.—Tennyson.

5. Blank verse.—Five measures, x a, without rhyme, Paradise Lost, Young's Night Thoughts, Cowper's Task.

6. Heroic couplets.—Five measures, x a, with pairs of rhymes. Chaucer, Denham, Dryden, Waller, Pope, Goldsmith, Cowper, Byron, Moore, Shelley, &c. This is the common metre for narrative, didactic, and descriptive poetry.