Common metre

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Common metre, abbreviated C. M., is an iambic metre consisting of four lines of length 8,6,8,6 syllables. It has historically been used for ballads such as Tam Lin, and hymns such as Amazing Grace and the Christmas carol While Shepherds Watched their Flocks By Night.

Many of the poems of Emily Dickinson use this metre, with the parlor game of singing her poems to the tune of "The Yellow Rose of Texas" or the theme song from "Gilligan's Island" finding some vogue in the late 20th century. The latter is also a popular choice for "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner".

Common meter is often used in hymns (see hymn meters).

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,

That saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now am found,

Was blind, but now I see.

— from John Newton's "Amazing Grace"

[edit] Ballad meter

A variant of the common meter is the ballad meter which is often used in ballads. Like the common meter it has stanzas of four iambic lines. The first and third typically have four-stresses; the second and fourth have three-stresses and usually rhyme.^[1] The ballad meter is distinguished from the common meter in that it has the rhyme scheme X A X A instead of A B A B.^[2]

Emily Dickinson is probably the best-known user of ballad meter, because it is so common in her poetry, especially in her best-known pieces:

Because I could not stop for Death,

He kindly stopped for me;

The Carriage held but just Ourselves

And Immortality.

— from Emily Dickinson's poem #712

It makes regular appearances in English language poetry, as well. All of Wordsworth's "Lucy Poems" (including "She dwelt among the untrodden ways", or "A slumber did my spirit seal") are in ballad meter. A modern example of ballad meter, one recognizable to many people in the United States, is the theme song to Gilligan's Island (although an anapaest has crept into the first line):

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,

a tale of a fateful trip.

That started from this tropic port,

aboard this tiny ship.