Andrew Marvell Excerpts from Herman Melville's Clarel, a book-length poem. This site is under continuous construction. Please visit from time to time. Verse written in tetrameter has four measures, which are also called feet.
Iambic tetrameter has four such feet, for a total of eight syllables.
Some variation is allowed. And after many a summer dies the swan. Most notable among tetrameter's advantages is its usefulness in songs and poems that, like songs, make a direct appeal to emotion. Like any other meter, tetrameter can be rhymed or unrhymed. Hymns, songs, and of course ballads use this verse form.