On the Subject of Optimized Meter
For the record, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” is a trochee.
Table 1: Find the lines displayed on the module in this table.
Poetic Foot | Pattern | Value | Line |
---|---|---|---|
Molossus | sss | 1 | Break, Break, Break |
Spondee | ss | 2 | Cry! Cry! |
Fie! Fie! | |||
Shut up! | |||
Bacchius | uss | 3 | When day breaks / the fish bite / at small flies |
Amphibrach | usu | 4 | And, speaking of birds, there’s the Russian Palooski / whose headski is redski and belly is blueski |
How dead to my heart are the scenes of my childhood | |||
it’s four in the morning, the end of december / I’m writing you now just to see if you’re better | |||
There once was a girl from Nantucket | |||
Dibrach | uu | 5 | |
Antibacchius | ssu | 6 | Blind luck is loved more than hard thinking |
Dactyl | suu | 7 | Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness |
Half a league, half a league, / Half a league onward, | |||
Higgledy piggledy, / Bacon, lord Chancellor. | |||
Out of the mockingbird’s throat | |||
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks | |||
Iamb | us | 8 | If you were coming in the fall / I’d brush the summer by |
Is this chicken, what I have, or is this fish? | |||
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date | |||
The guests are met, the feast is set: / May’st hear the merry din. | |||
The way a crow / Shook down on me / The dust of snow | |||
To swell the gourd and plump the hazel shells | |||
Anapest | uus | 9 | And since birth I’ve been cursed with this curse to just curse |
There was one who was famed for the number of things / He forgot when he entered the sip: | |||
Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house | |||
You have brains in your head. / You have feet in your shoes | |||
Cretic | sus | 10 | La-di-dah! |
Trochee | su | 11 | And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting |
Double, double toil and trouble; / Fire burn and cauldron bubble. | |||
Got a long list of ex-lovers | |||
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, | |||
One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish | |||
Tyger! Tyger! Burning Bright | |||
Tribrach | uuu | 12 |