A line containing three feet is called trimeter. Example:—
^ ^ ^ “The snow had be gun in the gloam ing,
^ ^ ^ And bus ily all the night
^ ^ ^ Had been heap ing field and high way
^ ^ ^ With a si lence deep and white.”
| ^ | ^ | ^ | ||||||
| “The | snow | had | be | gun | in | the | gloam | ing, |
| ^ | ^ | ^ | |||
| And | bus | ily | all | the | night |
| ^ | ^ | ^ | |||||
| Had | been | heap | ing | field | and | high | way |
| ^ | ^ | ^ | ||||
| With | a | si | lence | deep | and | white.” |
A line containing four feet is called tetrameter. “Marmion” is written in tetrameters. See the extract on p. [276].
A line containing five feet is called pentameter. This line is very common in English poetry. It gives [275] room enough for the poet to say something, and is not so long that it breaks down with its own weight. Shakespeare’s Plays, Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King,”—indeed, most of the great, serious work of the master-poets has been done in this verse.
A line containing six feet is called hexameter. This is the form adopted in the Iliad and the Odyssey of the Greeks, and the Æneid of the Romans; it has been used sometimes by English writers in treating dignified subjects. “The Courtship of Miles Standish” and “Evangeline” are written in hexameter.
Verses of seven and eight feet are rare; they are called heptameter and octameter, respectively. The heptameter is usually divided into a tetrameter and a trimeter; the octameter, into two tetrameters. Poe’s “Raven” and Tennyson’s “Locksley Hall” are in octameters, and Bryant’s “The Death of the Flowers” is in heptameters.