Laurel · Poems by form and metre

Anapaestic common measure

Common measure in anapaests: alternating four- and three-foot lines, each foot two light syllables then a stress. Below, what the metre is and how to recognise it, then every poem on Laurel measured as anapaestic common measure, with how closely each keeps it.

What anapaestic common measure is

The ballad shape, four beats answered by three, but in anapaests: two light syllables before each heavy one instead of one. A song measure.

da-da-DUM da-da-DUM da-da-DUM da-da-DUM / da-da-DUM da-da-DUM da-da-DUM

How to tell

Stanzas of four lines alternating twelve and nine syllables, with a swing.

Paste a poem of your own and Laurel will say whether it is in anapaestic common measure, stanza by stanza. How to scan a line.

43 poems on Laurel in anapaestic common measure

  1. Nurse's Song William Blake, Poems of William Blake · 90%
  2. Nurse’s Song William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience · 90%
  3. Nurse’s Song William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience · 88%
  4. My Pretty Rose Tree William Blake, Poems of William Blake · 86%
  5. My Pretty Rose Tree William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience · 86%
  6. The Preacher Emily Dickinson, Poems · 79%
  7. Open the Door to Me, Oh Robert Burns, Poems and Songs · 94%
  8. A Lass Wi’ a Tocher Robert Burns, Poems and Songs · 83%
  9. With an Impression of the Author’s Portrait Robert Burns, Poems and Songs · 80%
  10. The Pool Paul Laurence Dunbar, The Complete Poems · 93%
  11. The Dream-Follower Thomas Hardy, Poems of the Past and the Present · 96%
  12. Fit III: The Baker’s Tale Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark · 82%
  13. Fit IV: The Hunting Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark · 82%
  14. Fit VII: The Banker’s Fate Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark · 81%
  15. Fit II: The Bellman’s Speech Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark · 80%
  16. Fit VI: The Barrister’s Dream Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark · 80%
  17. Fit VIII: The Vanishing Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark · 79%
  18. Fit V: The Beaver’s Lesson Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark · 76%
  19. Fit I: The Landing Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark · 76%
  20. The Picture Walter de la Mare, Peacock Pie · 89%
  21. Margaret’s Bridal Eve I George Meredith, Poems, Volume I · 82%
  22. Margaret’s Bridal Eve III George Meredith, Poems, Volume I · 81%
  23. I Stood with the Dead Siegfried Sassoon, The War Poems · 96%
  24. Lorenzo De Lardy W. S. Gilbert, The Bab Ballads · 84%
  25. Seven Times Two. Romance Jean Ingelow, Poems, Volume I · 88%
  26. Reflections of a Proud Pedestrian Oliver Wendell Holmes, Poetical Works, Volume I · 83%
  27. Party Spirit Thomas Hood, Poems · 100%
  28. The Schoolmaster’s Motto Thomas Hood, Poems · 95%
  29. On a Daguerreotype Portrait of a Lady Thomas Hood, Poems · 94%
  30. Love, with a Witness Thomas Hood, Poems · 91%
  31. Dibdin Modernized Thomas Hood, Poems · 89%
  32. The Dog and Thief. 1726 Jonathan Swift, Poems, Volume II · 90%
  33. Old Adam Robert Bell, Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of England · 89%
  34. Homeward Bound XLVI Heinrich Heine, Poems and Ballads · 89%
  35. The Merry Broomfield; Or, the West Country Wager Robert Bell, Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of England · 88%
  36. An Appeal to My Countrywomen Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Poems · 87%
  37. The Rose Eugene Field, Hoosier Lyrics · 84%
  38. A Second Western Wonder Edmund Waller, Poetical Works · 84%
  39. A Western Wonder Edmund Waller, Poetical Works · 84%
  40. The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna Charles Wolfe, Poems · 82%
  41. A Fragment Fitz-Greene Halleck, Fanny, with Other Poems · 82%
  42. Song to a Serenader in February Winthrop Mackworth Praed, Poems · 80%
  43. The "Ars Poetica" of Horace—I Eugene Field, Hoosier Lyrics · 76%

Each poem's metre was measured from its own words by the method described here; the figure beside a poem is the share of its stressed syllables that fall on the beat. Forms are named from the rhyme scheme and line count together.