Identify which of the following is written in this most common meter by circling it (you may scan them if necessary to help you identify the meter)'O I fear ye are poisoned,Lord Randal, my son! O I fear ye are poisoned, my handsome young man?" "O yes! I am poisoned;mother, make my bed soon, For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain wald lie down."from "Lord Randal"
When you say "the most common meter" you are not still referring to haiku, are you? I used to have my students literally beat it out on the desk! It is also important to see the "form."
Sra
The meter is ../../../../
Check this site for the name of the meter.
http://www.uncg.edu/~htkirbys/meters.htm
To determine the meter of a poem, you need to analyze the syllabic pattern and the stress patterns of the words. In this case, let's break down the lines into syllables and examine the stress patterns:
"O I fear ye are poisoned,
Lord Randal, my son!
O I fear ye are poisoned,
my handsome young man?"
"O yes! I am poisoned;
mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm sick at the heart,
and I fain wald lie down."
To identify the meter, we will mark the stressed syllables with an accent (´) and the unstressed syllables with a breve (˘):
"O I fear ye´ are poi´soned,
Lord Ran´dal, my son!
O I fear ye´ are poi´soned,
my hand´some young man?"
"O yes! I am poi´soned;
moth´er, make my bed soon,
For I'm´ sick at the heart,
and I fain wald´ lie down."
Now, let's analyze the patterns. From the stressed syllables, we can identify a consistent pattern in each line: there are four feet with alternating stressed and unstressed syllables, resulting in a trochaic tetrameter.
Therefore, the given stanza from "Lord Randal" is written in trochaic tetrameter.