Poulter's measure
Couplets alternating a twelve-syllable line with a fourteen-syllable one, a Tudor measure named after the poulterer's dozen. Below, what the metre is and how to recognise it, then every poem on Laurel measured as poulter's measure, with how closely each keeps it.
What poulter's measure is
Couplets that alternate a twelve-syllable line with a fourteen-syllable one, six beats and then seven, light then heavy. A Tudor measure, named after the poulterer’s dozen, which was twelve one time and fourteen the next.
da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM / da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM
How to tell
Pairs of lines, one of twelve syllables and one of fourteen. Broken at the pauses it becomes short measure.
Paste a poem of your own and Laurel will say whether it is in poulter's measure, stanza by stanza. How to scan a line.
3 poems on Laurel in poulter's measure
- Verses on Captain Grose Robert Burns, Poems and Songs · 84%
- From Ali Ben Abu Taleb Ralph Waldo Emerson, Poems · 77%
- To a Lady Asking Foolish Questions Ernest Dowson, The Poems of Ernest Dowson · 90%
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.