Training in Lyric Poetry & Verse for songwriters.

With Complete Rhyming Dictionary

	MEASURES OF VERSE.                          30
	No marvel that the lady wept, it was the land of France, The chosen home of chivalry, the garden of romance. Bell. (A). Iambic OctametEr. Normal line, Sixteen Syllables This metre is very rare. Webbe, in his " Dis­course of Poetry," says, " The longest verse which I have seen used in English consisteth of sixteen syllables, each two verses rhyming together ; thus— 1 Where virtue wants and vice abounds, there wealth is but a baited hook, To make men swallow down their bane, before on danger deep they look.'" This species, therefore, did once exist, in form and show, as a single verse; but, in fact, it was two; " for," says he, " it is commonly divided each verse into two, whereof each shall contain eight syllables, and rhyme crosswise, the first to the third, and the second to the fourth," forming the Long metre of our psalms. When in the night I sleepless lie, My soul with heavenly thoughts supply; Let no ill dreams disturb my rest, No powers of darkness me molest. Ken. A few modern specimens of it may be seen in the poems of Owen Meredith.