Trimeter Examples

Trimeter is a specific metrical pattern. You are already familiar with iambic pentameter, which is a line of poetry with ten syllables that alternate in five groups of unstressed and stressed. Trimeter is a line of three iambs-six syllables that alternate in three groups of unstressed and stressed.

"The Only News I Know" by Emily Dickenson:

The only news I know

Is bulletins all day

From Immortality.

The only shows I see,

Tomorrow and Today,

Perchance Eternity.

"My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke:

We romped until the pans

Slid from the kitchen shelf;

My mother's countenance

Could not unfrown itself.

"Song" by William Blake:

I love the jocund dance,

The softly breathing song,

From Robert Bridges:

The idle life I lead

Is like a pleasant sleep,

Wherein I rest and heed

The dreams that by me sweep.