Laurel · Poems by form and metre

Iambic octameter

Eight iambs to the line, sixteen syllables: a very long line, most often two tetrameters printed as one. Below, what the metre is and how to recognise it, then every poem on Laurel measured as iambic octameter, with how closely each keeps it.

What iambic octameter is

Eight beats to the line, light then heavy: sixteen syllables. A very long line, most often two tetrameters printed as one.

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

How to tell

Sixteen syllables that fall into two halves of eight. Check whether the halves rhyme with each other; if they do, the poet has printed a pair of tetrameters on one line.

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

29 poems on Laurel in iambic octameter

  1. Twenty Years Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass · 91%
  2. To Get the Final Lilt of Songs Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass · 83%
  3. To a President Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass · 80%
  4. Shakspere-Bacon’s Cipher Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass · 77%
  5. The May Queen Alfred Tennyson, The Early Poems · 90%
  6. My Father Was a Farmer Robert Burns, Poems and Songs · 95%
  7. My Corn-Cob Pipe Paul Laurence Dunbar, The Complete Poems · 98%
  8. The Voice of the Banjo Paul Laurence Dunbar, The Complete Poems · 98%
  9. Li'L' Gal Paul Laurence Dunbar, The Complete Poems · 96%
  10. At Candle-Lightin' Time Paul Laurence Dunbar, The Complete Poems · 94%
  11. Mulholland's Contract Rudyard Kipling, Verses 1889–1896 · 88%
  12. Fever-Chills John Masefield, Salt-Water Ballads · 90%
  13. Cape Horn Gospel—Ii John Masefield, Salt-Water Ballads · 87%
  14. The Tarry Buccaneer John Masefield, Salt-Water Ballads · 79%
  15. A Song at Parting John Masefield, Salt-Water Ballads · 76%
  16. Paris II Alan Seeger, Poems · 89%
  17. Apprenticed Jean Ingelow, Poems, Volume I · 100%
  18. The China Mender Thomas Hood, Poems · 81%
  19. Vashti James Weldon Johnson, Fifty Years and Other Poems · 98%
  20. The Master Singer George William Russell, The Divine Vision and Other Poems · 97%
  21. The Gates of Dreamland George William Russell, The Divine Vision and Other Poems · 97%
  22. Babylon George William Russell, The Divine Vision and Other Poems · 96%
  23. The Problem Henry Timrod, Poems · 96%
  24. The Everlasting Battle George William Russell, The Divine Vision and Other Poems · 96%
  25. Aphrodite George William Russell, The Divine Vision and Other Poems · 95%
  26. The Chariot-driver Vyasa, The Mahabharata (condensed) · 93%
  27. Ireland (December 1, 1890) William Watson, The Poems of William Watson · 87%
  28. A Mood Thomas Bailey Aldrich, The Sisters' Tragedy, with Other Poems · 83%
  29. Alice of Monmouth VI Edmund Clarence Stedman, The Poetical Works of Edmund Clarence Stedman · 78%

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.