Laurel · Poems by form and metre

Dactylic trimeter

Three 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 trimeter, with how closely each keeps it.

What dactylic trimeter is

Three beats to the line, a heavy syllable then two light ones: DUM-da-da three times, eight or nine syllables.

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

How to tell

Short falling lines with a waltz rhythm, three beats.

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

18 poems on Laurel in dactylic trimeter

  1. Given in marriage unto thee Emily Dickinson, Poems
  2. Piccadilly Ezra Pound, Personae · 89%
  3. Pervigilium Ezra Pound, Lustra · 89%
  4. The Paradox Paul Laurence Dunbar, The Complete Poems · 94%
  5. The Dance Paul Laurence Dunbar, The Complete Poems · 86%
  6. The Problem Thomas Hardy, Poems of the Past and the Present · 88%
  7. Early Death and Fame Matthew Arnold, Poems · 91%
  8. The Swing Robert Louis Stevenson, A Child's Garden of Verses · 92%
  9. Tired Tim Walter de la Mare, Peacock Pie · 100%
  10. 909. The Honeycomb Robert Herrick, Hesperides · 92%
  11. Franklin Jones Edgar Lee Masters, Spoon River Anthology · 88%
  12. Henry Layton Edgar Lee Masters, Spoon River Anthology · 77%
  13. Aladdin and the Jinn Vachel Lindsay, The Congo and Other Poems · 90%
  14. Vigil W. E. Henley, Poems · 85%
  15. Discharged W. E. Henley, Poems · 84%
  16. "Innocent Child and Snow-White Flower" William Cullen Bryant, Poems · 77%
  17. Homeward Bound XXVII Heinrich Heine, Poems and Ballads · 83%
  18. A Remembrance Bliss Carman, Later Poems · 80%

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.