The hills, the meadows, and the lakes,
Enchant not for their own sweet sakes.
They cannot know, they cannot care
To know that they are thought so fair.
Can you identify the meter used in this poem? (Define it in terms of both foot and meter, and then click here.)
Tetrameter was used widely in the writing of plays in England before writers like Christopher Marlowe and Shakespeare made iambic pentameter the standard meter for plays. Tetrameter tends to trot along, although in the hands of a good poet like Andrew Marvell, it can be exciting:
The grave's a fine and quiet place,
But none I think do there embrace.
The building of the new Globe Theater in London near the very spot where Shakespeare's Globe Theater once stood.