An amphibrac is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. It consists of a long syllable between two short syllables. In verse, a foot is the basic unit of meter used to describe rhythm. ... Poetry (ancient Greek: ποιεω (poieo) = I create) is traditionally a written art form (although there is also an ancient and modern poetry which relies mainly upon oral or pictorial representations) in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ... A long syllable is one that is emphasized, or stressed. ... The woods are lovely, dark, and deep. ...

Amphibracs are seldom used to construct an entire poem. They mainly occur as variants within, for instance, an anapaestic structure. An anapaest is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. ...

In English, stress-based poetry an amphibrach is a stressed syllable surrounded by two unstressed syllables. It is the main foot used in the construction of the limerick. E.G. "There was a young lady of Wantage"

The amphibrach is also often used in ballads and light verse. E.G. the hypermetrical lines Sir John Betjeman's Italic textMeditation on the A40 Sir John Betjeman (28 August 1906 – 19 May 1984) was a British poet and writer on architecture. ...