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Scan the following lines from Robert Browning's poem "Count Gismond: Aix in Provence." Mark the stressed and unstressed syllables, separate the...

I thought/ they loved/ me, did/ me grace/


To please/ themselves;/ 'twas all/ their deed;/


God makes,/ or fair,/ or foul,/ our face;/


If show/ing mine/ so caused/ to bleed /


My cou/sins' hearts,/ they should/ have dropped/


A word,/ and straight/ the play/ had stopped./


In the above, the stressed syllables are bolded, while the unstressed syllables are not. A meter contains several feet of stressed and unstressed syllables. (In poetry, a "foot" refers to two or more syllables, one of which is usually stressed and one of which is usually unstressed.) Since we have an unstressed/stressed pattern in each line, the meter is iambic. Other meters with two-syllable feet are trochaic (with stressed/unstressed feet) and spondaic (stressed/stressed feet).


Also, we have four feet in each line, so we would classify the meter as iambic tetrameter. This means that the feet are iambs—combinations of one unstressed and one stressed syllable—and there are four per line (thus tetrameter, because the prefix "tetra" means "four"). The rhyme scheme is ABABCC. This means that the first line rhymes with the third line, the second line rhymes with the fourth line, and the fifth and sixth lines rhyme with each other. The rest of the poem also shows this rhyme scheme.



They, too,/ so beau/teous! Each/ a queen


By vir/tue of/ her brow/ and breast;/


Not need/ing to/ be crowned,/ I mean,/


As I/ do. E'en/ when I/ was dressed,/


Had ei/ther of/ them spoke,/ instead/


Of glan/cing side/ways with/ still head!/


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