Another nice example of true "loose iambics" (I feel another term would be more useful, but can't seem to come up with one), this one by Edna St. Vincent Millay:
[b]Winter Night[/B}
Pile high the hickory and the light
Log of chestnut struck by the blight.
Welcome-in the winter night.
The day has gone in hewing and felling,
Sawing and drawing wood to the dwelling
For the night of talk and story-telling.
These are the hours that give the edge
To the blunted axe and the bent wedge,
Straighten the saw and lighten the sledge.
Here are question and reply,
And the fire reflected in the thinking eye.
So peace, and let the bob-cat cry.
A lot of refreshing rhythmic variety here--from straight iambic (as the last line) and trochaic (line 3) to sprinklings of anapests, or two heavy stressed syllables back to back (bent wedge). She makes good use of the skipping ability of light little (anceps) monosyllabic words, also in combination with the light syllables of trochaic words. We even get a relatively rare three-light-syllables-in-a-row (a firey flickering, as it were) in the penultimate line.
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