Accentual verse

Accentual verse has a fixed number of stresses per line regardless of the number of syllables that are present. It is common in languages that are stress-timed, such as English, as opposed to syllabic verse which is common in syllable-timed languages, such as French.

Accentual verse is particularly common in children's poetry; nursery rhymes and the less well-known skipping-rope rhymes are the most common form of accentual verse in the English Language. The following poem, "Baa Baa Black Sheep," has two stresses in each line but a varying number of syllables. Bold represents stressed syllables, and the number of syllables in each line is noted.

Baa, baa, black sheep, (4)
Have you any wool? (5)
Yes sir, yes sir, (4)
Three bags full; (3)
One for the mas-ter, (5)
And one for the dame, (5)
And one for the lit-tle boy (7)
Who lives down the lane. (5)

Accentual verse derives its musical qualities from its flexibility with unstressed syllables and tends to follow the natural speech patterns of English.

Accentual verse was a traditionally common prosody in Germany, Scandinavia, Iceland and Britain. Accentual verse has been widespread in English poetry since its earliest recording, with Old English poetry written in a special form of accentual verse termed alliterative verse, of which Beowulf is a notable example. Anglo-Saxon poetry generally added two further basic elements to the basic four-beat accentual verse pattern: alliteration of three of the four beats, and a medial pause (caesura). Anglo-Saxon poets made frequent use of epithets to achieve the desired alliteration, and had various other more complex rules and forms, though these have not been as popular in later poetry.

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