Inverse and poetry, meter is a recurring pattern of stressed (accented, orlong) and unstressed (unaccented, or short) syllables in lines of a setlength. For example, suppose a line contains ten syllables (set length)in which the first syllable is unstressed, the second is stressed, thethird is unstressed, the fourth is stressed, and so on until the line reachesthe tenth syllable. The line would look like the following one (the openingline of Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18") containing a pattern of unstressed andstressed syllables. The unstressed syllables are in blue and the stressedsyllables in red.  Afoot containing an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable(as above) is called aniamb. Because there are five feet in theline, all iambic, themeter of the line isiambic pentameter.The prefixpent inpentameter meansfive (Greek:penta,five).Pent is joined to words or word roots to form new wordsindicating five. For example, the Pentagon in Washington has five sides,the Pentateuch of the Bible consists of five books, and a pentathlon ina sports event has five events. Thus, poetry lines with five feet are inpentameter.
Somefeet in verse and poetry have different stress patterns. For example, onetype of foot consists of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressedone. Another type consists of a stressed one followed by an unstressedone. In all, there are six types of feet:
Meteris determined by the type of foot and the number of feet in a line. Thus,a line with three iambic feet is known as iambic trimeter. A line withsix dactylic feet is known as dactylic hexameter. 
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|conSID|erHOW|myLIFE|isSPENT
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|myDAYS|inTHIS|darkWORLD|andWIDE
13
|aTIME|whenMEAD|ow,GROVE,|andSTREAM, | | 13
|andEV|ryCOM|monSIGHT, | | 1
|didSEEM | | 13
|elledIN|celEST|ialLIGHT, | | 13
|yAND|theFRESH|nessOF|aDREAM. | | 13
|notNOW|asIT|hathBEEN|ofYORE; | | 13
|soE'ER|IMAY, | | 1
|orDAY, | | 13
|whichI|haveSEEN|INOW|canSEE|noMORE. | |
13
|iancameDOWN|liketheWOLF|ontheFOLD,
13
|hortswereGLEAM|inginPUR|pleandGOLD;
13
|oftheirSPEARS|waslikeSTARS|ontheSEA
13
|TYger|BURNning|BRIGHT
13
|FORests|OFthe|NIGHT
|
