Laurel · Poems by form and metre

Dactylic tetrameter

Four dactyls to the line, a stress then two light syllables. Below, what the metre is and how to recognise it, then every poem on Laurel measured as dactylic tetrameter, with how closely each keeps it.

What dactylic tetrameter is

Four beats to the line, a heavy syllable then two light ones: DUM-da-da four times, eleven or twelve syllables. Browning’s Lost Leader is in it.

DUM-da-da DUM-da-da DUM-da-da DUM-da-da

JUST for a HAND-ful of SIL-ver he LEFT us
Browning, The Lost Leader; the beats in capitals

How to tell

Lines that start heavy and waltz, four beats, ten to twelve syllables.

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

24 poems on Laurel in dactylic tetrameter

  1. Mesmerism Ezra Pound, Personae · 86%
  2. The Falling of the Leaves W. B. Yeats, Poems · 86%
  3. Thou Gloomy December Robert Burns, Poems and Songs · 82%
  4. Christmas Paul Laurence Dunbar, The Complete Poems · 96%
  5. Over the Hills Paul Laurence Dunbar, The Complete Poems · 88%
  6. The Murdered Lover Paul Laurence Dunbar, The Complete Poems · 86%
  7. The Valse Paul Laurence Dunbar, The Complete Poems · 86%
  8. To the Road Paul Laurence Dunbar, The Complete Poems · 83%
  9. Ode for Memorial Day Paul Laurence Dunbar, The Complete Poems · 80%
  10. Phyllis Paul Laurence Dunbar, The Complete Poems · 74%
  11. The First Chantey Rudyard Kipling, Verses 1889–1896 · 83%
  12. The Going of the Battery, Wives’ Lament, (November 2, 1899) Thomas Hardy, Poems of the Past and the Present · 84%
  13. Separation Matthew Arnold, Poems · 82%
  14. Keepsake Mill Robert Louis Stevenson, A Child's Garden of Verses · 82%
  15. The Ballad of the Battle of Gibeon G. K. Chesterton, The Wild Knight and Other Poems · 82%
  16. On Suddenly Receiving a Curl Long Refused Vachel Lindsay, The Congo and Other Poems · 79%
  17. To the Rev. Father Goldie, S. J Lionel Johnson, Poems · 79%
  18. My Soprano (H. L.) Louise Imogen Guiney, Songs at the Start · 86%
  19. Niagara Joseph Rodman Drake, The Culprit Fay and Other Poems · 83%
  20. England to Ireland (February 1888) William Watson, The Poems of William Watson · 78%
  21. On Being Removed from Hsün-Yang and Sent to Chung-Chou Various, A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems · 78%
  22. On the Way to Hangchow: Anchored on the River at Night Various, A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems · 78%
  23. Dactylics Henry Kirke White, The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White · 77%
  24. Surf Edmund Clarence Stedman, The Poetical Works of Edmund Clarence Stedman · 75%

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.