Poetry—Methods of Form
P18a Meter
Meter Analysis
Time to test your knowledge! Identify the base meter of the following lines (Hint: Each line is perfect meter, with no
substitutions):
1. Tell me not in mournful numbers
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “A Psalm of Life”
2. I have been one acquainted with the night
- Robert Frost, “Acquainted with the Night”
3. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary
- Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven”
4. ’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house
- Clement Clarke Moore, “The Night Before Christmas”
5. Condemned whole years in absence to deplore
- Alexander Pope, “Eloise to Abelard”
6. Willows whiten, aspens quiver
- Alfred Lord Tennyson, “The Lady of Shalott”
7. That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall
- Robert Browning, “My Last Duchess”
8. Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
- John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
Professor Flare (2006). Basics of meter. Retrieved from www.deviantart.com.