NAVIGATION: Index of Introduction to Poetry Materials Index of Dr. Weller's Class Materials

Exercise on Meter



For each of the following poems, name the meter of the poem and write out the scansion of at least four consecutive lines. (NOTE: Meter is usually named with two words, the first of which designates the most common foot, and the second of which designates the number of feet in a single line. Thus, the meter in which the most common foot is an iamb and in which there are five feet in every line is called "iambic pentameter.")
  1. Thomas Wyatt (1503 - 1542),
    "Blame Not My Lute"
  2. Samuel Daniel (1563 - 1619),
    Delia: 50 ("Let others sing of knights and paladins")
  3. Christopher Marlowe (1564 - 1693),
    "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love"
  4. William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616),
    Sonnets: 29 ("When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes")
  5. William Shakespeare (1564 - 1637),
    Sonnets: 30 ("When to the sessions of sweet silent thought")
  6. William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616),
    Sonnets: 116 ("Let me not to the marriage of true minds ")
  7. Ben Jonson (1572 - 1616),
    "Still to Be Neat" -- p. 216
  8. William Blake (1757 - 1827),
    "The Tyger"
  9. Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892),
    "Had I the choice"
  10. Archibald Macleish (1892 - 1982),
    "Ars Poetica"
  11. Dylan Thomas (1914 -1953),
    "In my craft or sullen art"
  12. Adrienne Rich (1929 - 2012),
    "Poetry: I"