Can you help me with these problems?
Mark the meter in lines 15-18
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
What is the meter?
One more thing I need help with is: Using alphabetical representation, write the rhyme scheme for these lines
Thank you so much in advance
1 Answer | Add Yours
The meter of a poem refers to the rhythm of the syllables in each line. Traditionally, meter uses two descriptions: the type of "foot" (a group of either two or three syllables) and the number of syllables in each line.
To figure out what type of foot is being utilized, you must find out which are the stressed syllables. This can be done by reading the poem out loud and really exaggerating the strong beats of a line, or by clapping along as if the line were part of a song. The most popular feet are iambs and stroches. Iambs have an unstressed-stressed (or weak-strong) pattern, whereas stroches are stressed-unstressed (strong-weak).
If you read this section aloud, you can hear the iambs very clearly: "The SMILES that WIN, the TINTS that GLOW." Generally, when marking the feet, you use a small u above each unstressed, or weak syllable, and an accent mark (`) above each strong, stressed syllable. I'm not sure what your teacher requires as far as marking the meter, but if he or she has not given particular instructions, you might want to use the traditional metric symbols.
Even though it doesn't seem part of the question, there is another part to the description of the meter: the number of feet in each line. This usually is described by adding the suffix "-meter" to that number. Thus, a line with five feet will be "pentameter," or a line with six feet is a "hexameter." By putting the type of foot and number of feet together, you have the meter (i.e. iambic pentameter or strochaic hexameter).
The second part of your question is much easier! Tradition dictates that rhyme schemes be described using letters. Beginning with the first line, assign the same letter to each line that rhymes. In this section of four lines, "glow" rhymes with "below," so those would both be "A." Any line that doesn't rhyme with "glow" gets the next letter, "B." Once you have letters assigned to all lines, you've got your rhyme scheme!
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