Verse Examples

The term verse could have several different meanings, all related to metrical writing:

1. It can mean a single line of poetry, or a line of metered text.

2. It can refer to a stanza on a poem.

3. It can refer to an entire poem, or piece of metered text.

There are, obviously, different types of verse, some rhymed, some not. Some with very structured meter, and some with less structured meter.

From William Wordsworth:

I wandered lonely as a cloud,

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

From William Carlos Williams:

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens.

From Shakespeare:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.

And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

From Alfred Lord Tennyson:

It little profits that an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren crags,

Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole

Unequal laws unto a savage race,

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.