Meter is definined by the number of alternating stressed and unstressed syllables in a line. Each sequence or group of two to three syllables in a line is called a foot. The simplest and most basic types of meters are: monometer, which is one foot; dimeter, two feet; trimester, three feet; tetrameter, four feet; pentameter, five feet; hexameter, six feet; and heptameter, seven feet. An example of hexameter is found in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie":
THIS is the | FORest pri | ME val. The | MURmuring | PINES and the | HEMlocks
The most commonly used meter is iambic pentameter. Each line contains five feet, or 10 paired syllables. Every other syllable is stressed, following the pattern "unstressed-stressed" within each foot. Here is an example from William Shakespeare's 29th sonnet:
When IN | dis GRACE | with FOR | tune AND | men's EYES
In this meter, every other syllable is stressed, but opposite from iambic, so that the feet are "stressed-unstressed". Here is an example from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Song of Hiawatha":
ON the | MOUNT ains | OF the | PRAIR rie,
A quick, light meter of any length, where within the foot two unaccented syllables are followed by one accented syllable. Here is an example from Isaac Watts' "The Sluggard:"
'Tis the VOICE | of the SLUG | gard, I HEARD | him com PLAIN,
Other forms of meter are dactylic, spondee and pyrrhic. A dactylic foot consists one accented syllable and two unaccented ones, such as "SWIM | ing | ly" or "HAND | ful | of." A spondee consists of two, long accented syllables, such as "HEART | BREAK" or "WHITE | FOUNTS." A pyrrhic foot consists of two unaccented syllables, such as "on | a" or "when | the."