A trochee or choree, choreus, is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. It consists of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one. In verse, a foot is the basic unit of meter used to describe rhythm. ... The Chinese poem Quatrain on Heavenly Mountain by Emperor Gaozong (Song Dynasty) Poetry (from the Greek , poiesis, making or creating) is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its ostensible meaning. ... Metre (American spelling: meter) is the rhythm or regular sound-pattern of poetry. ... In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word. ...

Examples

Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha is written almost entirely in trochees, barring the occasional substitution (iamb, spondee, pyrrhic, etc.). Baron Longfellow , also named Andy Kim was an artist from the 60s. ... Statue of Hiawatha carrying Minnehaha at Minnehaha Park in Minneapolis, Minnesota. ... An iamb is a metrical foot used in various types of poetry. ... Look up Spondee in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A pyrrhic is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. ...

Should you ask me, whence these stories?

Whence these legends and traditions,

With the odours of the forest,

With the dew and damp of meadows,

In the second line, "and tra-" is a pyrrhic substitution, as are "With the" in the third and fourth lines, and "of the" in the third. Even so, the dominant foot throughout the poem is the trochee.

Apart from the famous case of Longfellow's Hiawatha, this metre is rare in English verse, except with an extra long syllable added to each line, as in this example from Tennyson: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet whose works include Paul Reveres Ride, A Psalm of Life, The Song of Hiawatha and Evangeline. ... Statue of Hiawatha carrying Minnehaha at Minnehaha Park in Minneapolis, Minnesota. ... Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (August 6, 1809 - October 6, 1892) is generally regarded as one of the greatest English poets. ...

Go not, happy day,

From the shining fields;

Go not, happy day,

Till the maiden yields.

Some poets choose to alternate lines of full trochees and lines where the final unstressed syllable has been ommitted. Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven is a perfect example. Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American poet, short story writer, editor, critic and one of the leaders of the American Romantic Movement. ... For other uses, see The Raven (disambiguation). ...

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Perhaps owing to its simplicity, though, trochaic meter is fairly common in children's rhymes:

Peter, Peter pumpkin-eater

Had a wife and couldn't keep her.

Often a few trochees will be interspersed among iambs in the same lines to develop a more complex or syncopated rhythm. Compare (William Blake): William Blake (November 28, 1757 – August 12, 1827) was an English poet, visionary, painter, and printmaker. ...

Tyger, Tyger, burning bright

In the forests of the night

These lines are primarily trochaic, with the last syllable dropped so that the line ends with a stressed syllable to give a strong rhyme or masculine rhyme. By contrast, the intuitive way that the mind groups the syllables in later lines in the same poem makes them feel more like iambic lines with the first syllable dropped: This page meets Wikipedias criteria for speedy deletion. ... An iamb is a metrical foot used in various types of poetry. ...

Did he smile his work to see?

In fact the surrounding lines by this point have become entirely iambic:

When the stars threw down their spears

And watered Heaven with their tears

. . .

Did he who made the lamb make thee?

See also

• Good King Wenceslas.