Verse is said to be in syllabic metre if each line has a fixed number of syllables. Here is an example:

In Panchatantra there is
A story of a strange bird
Whose droppings turn into gold.
Listen to that tale in verse.
This bird a hunter ensnared
And put it into a cage.
"It's an ill-omen," he thought
And decided to present
The bird to the king lest he
Be condemned to die for it.
The king was happy to own
Such a peculiar bird.
He ordered his guardsmen to
Give the bird choice food and drink.
But the king's counselor said,
"Why waste food and drink on it?
How can dung turn into gold?"
The king mused awhile and then
He shouted, "Set the bird free!"
Upon a door the freed bird
Sat and let its droppings fall.
The droppings turned into gold.
And then the bird flew away.

Here we note that each line has seven syllables. This kind of verse may easily be mistaken for rhythmic prose; or, what is worse, for free verse. Its identity, however, can be preserved by giving due weight to every syllable in the recitation. But this is really difficult as English is an accentual language.

Some of the Japanese verse-forms: haiku (three lines of 5-7-5 syllables) and tanka (five lines of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables) are in syllabic metre.

Vowels are either short or long. In the word 'tanka', the vowel 'a' is short in the first syllable but long in the second. A syllable is either long or short depending on the kind of vowel it has. A combination of short and long syllables make a foot. Let's look at some of the possible combinations.

Iamb (short-long; tanka)

Trochee (long-short; topple)

Anapest (short-short-long; Japanese)

Dactyl (long-short-short; angelic)

A certain number of such feet make the quantitative line. Here is a sample made up of quantitative iambs:

(short-long / short-long / short-long / short-long)

Again, English is not a quantitative but an accentual language. So quantitative verse may run into problems of rhythm unless it coincides with the accentual variety. In an essay 'On Quantitative Metre', Sri Aurobindo has tried to redefine quantitative metre with four rules. Here are the first two:

1. All stressed syllables are regarded as metrically long, as also all syllables supported on a long vowel.
2. All short-vowel syllables not stressed are regarded as short unless they are heavily weighted with consonants. But on the last point no fixed rule can be given; in each case the ear must be the judge.

The other two rules deal with poetic licence and so need not concern us. What he really formulated was a new kind of metre which may be termed accentual-quantitative verse. He himself tried this metre in his unfinished Illion. Readers may find it in Sri Aurobindo's Collected Poems and judge for themselves the success or failure of the attempt.

Just look at the opening lines of S.T. Coleridge's 'Christabel':

The syllables in each line of this poem, Coleridge says, "may vary from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found to be only four." This principle of ordering verse is known as accentual metre. Syllables may be short or long, but it is their weight (light or strong) that really counts in English verse because the language is accentual. G.M. Hopkins employed this fact to the hilt and revived an old English rhythm and called it Sprung Rhythm.

The distribution of accents or stresses is not all that easy. Why should 'How drowsily it crew' have four stresses. It seems more natural to scan it thus:

How drow/sily it crew.

(ta-tum / ta-ta-ta-tum)

The same may be asked of 'Tu-whit!-Tu-whoo!' and the answer is the same. Here is a short poem of mine titled 'The Birds Of Time':

Here 'Tu-whit tu-whoo' is treated as a line with two stresses. The point that is wished to be made is that accents are not fixed. It may vary from poem to poem in tune with the demands of rhythm and metre. And may even vary within the same poem.

This is the most natural metre of English verse. The syllables are measured and so are the stresses. This metre, like quantitative metre, divides the poetic line into certain kinds of feet: iamb (light-strong), trochee (strong-light), anapest (light-light-strong), dactyl (strong-light-light), spondee (strong-strong) and pyrrhic (light-light). The accentual feet seldom coincide with quantitative feet.

We have seen in quantitative terms that 'tanka, topple, Japanese and angelic' are iambic, trochaic, anapestic and dactylic respectively. But in accentual terms, tanka and topple are trochaic; Japanese and angelic are dactylic.

Here is a sample of the accentual-syllabic from Wordsworth's 'Daffodils':

For oft, / when on/ my couch / I lie

This is iambic tetrameter because it is iambic throughout and each line has four feet. Also note that each line has no more nor less than eight syllables.

Accentual-Syllabic metre is identified by the number of feet in a line and also by its kind. Classified by number, we have the following metres: 1. Monometer (one foot); 2. Dimeter (two feet); 3. Trimeter (three feet); 4. Tetrameter (four feet); 5. Pentameter (five feet); and 6. Hexameter (six feet). Classified by kind, we have the iambic, trochaic, anapestic and the dactylic metres.

Metre can also be an expressive principle of verse. This may be called onomatopoeic metre. By substituting in an iambic line of verse other kinds of feet, especially pyrrhic and spondee, certain effects can be achieved -- a sort of marriage between sound and sense. In Poetic Meter And Poetic Form, Paul Fussell lays down three principles of expression through metrical variation. 1. Spondaic substitutions 'reinforce effects of slowness, weight or difficulty'; 2. Pyrrhic substitutions 'reinforce effects of rapidity, lightness or ease'; and 3. A reversed foot (trochee for iamb, or dactyl for anapest) 'implies a sudden movement, often of discovery or illumination; or a new direction of thought, a new tone of voice, or a change or intensification of poetic address'. He goes on to discuss all these with some good examples. Here is a famous example from Alexander Pope's Essay On Criticism which Samuel Johnson had also quoted in 'Life Of Pope'.

When A/jax strives / some rock's / vast weight / to throw,

The line / too la/bours, and / the words /move slow;

Not so, / when swift / Camil/la scours /the plain,

Flies o'er /th'unben/ding corn, / and skims /along /the main.

Paul Fussell points out that the spondees 'vast weight', 'too la' and 'move slow' make us one with Ajax. He also points out the pyrrhic 'along' produces the opposite effect and makes us one with Camilla. But Samuel Johnson - and I think rightly - sounds a word of caution: "Beauties of this kind are commonly fancied; and when real, are technical and nugatory, not to be rejected, and not to be solicited." He quotes an interesting stanza about the labour of Sisyphus:

With many a weary step, and many a groan,

Up the high hill he leaves a huge round stone;

The huge round stone, resulting with a bound,

Thunders impetuous down, and smoaks along the ground.

"Who does not perceive the stone to move slowly upward, and roll violently back?" he asks and furnishes another stanza:

While many a merry tale, and many a song,

Cheer'd the rough road, we wish'd the rough road long.

The rough road then, returning in a round,

Mock'd our impatient steps, for all was fairy ground.

Though the metre of both the stanzas is the same, "We have now surely lost much of the delay, and much of the rapidity," he asserts. And he seems to be in the right. This is not to say that metre cannot be an expressive principle. But to govern verse, metre has to function as an ordering principle. Metrical variations there can be and poetic licence will take care of that.

Exponents of free verse deny that metre is a necessary condition of verse and that -- more often than not - it impedes the expression of thought. Metre is, however, recognised as just another poetic device which may be employed occasionally.

Free verse can be composed in prose (prose-poem) or in semi-metre or in typographic lines. Let's look at each of them.

When verse is not written in lines but in sentences we get the prose-poem. It is arguably the best form of free verse. The emphasis is on the thought and not on the sound of the verse though the prose may have a rhythmic quality.

Here is an example from T.S. Thiagarajan's 'In The Temple':

When metre is not strictly adhered to in a line of verse, the resultant free verse is said to be in semi-metre. This principle, when consciously employed in a whole poem, does not impede the 'free expression of thought' and yet preserves some rhythmic quality of ordered verse. Here are the concluding lines of 'Snake' by D.H. Lawrence:

And I thought of the Albatross,

But there is not much of a difference between the prose-poem and semi-metre. A prose-poem can be set off in semi-metre. Let's try it out with Thiagarajan's poem.