Trochee
A trochee is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. It consists of a long syllable[?] followed by a short one.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:
- Go not, happy day,
- From the shining fields;
- Go not, happy day,
- Till the maiden yields.
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.
- Twinkle, twinkle, little star
- How I wonder where you are.
Often a few trochees will be interspersed among iambs in the same lines to develop a more complex or syncopated rhythm. Compare (William Blake):
- 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:
- Did he smile his work to see?
In fact the surrounding lines by this point have become entirely iambic:
- And when the stars threw down their spears
- And watered Heaven with their tears
- . . .
- Did he who made the lamb make thee?
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he had, till.html">till he filled it and hung it up over his head for safe
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buy.html">buy with the price an ewe and take to partner therein a
a male.html">male lamb and a female.html">female and the second a female and a male and
will they give over bearing females and males, till they become a
will. The males I will sell and buy with them bulls and cows,
which I will purchase such a piece of land.html">land and plant a garden
I will get me robes and raiment and slaves and slave girls and
cattle and make rich meats and sweetmeats and confections and
folk and, after providing flowers and perfumes and all manner
and lords of the land, and whoso asketh for aught, I will cause
and drink and send out a crier to cry aloud and say, 'Whoso
bride, after her unveiling and enjoy her beauty and loveliness;
'Verily, hast thou won thy wish,' and will rest from devotion and
I shall rejoice in him and make banquets in his honour and rear
letters;[FN#70] so that I shall make his name renowned among men
bid him do good and he shall not gainsay me, and I will forbid
practice of righteousness; and I will bestow on him rich and
redouble my bounties towards him: but, an I see him incline to
saying, he raised his hand, to beat his son withal but the.
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