I didn't check in till almost 2 a.m. so I can't respond at much length, but I will have some things to say over the next two or three days. The distinction between meter and rhythm
seems so obvious that I'm a little surprised by the confusion,
but I guess I shouldn't be. Since Golias mentioned Frost, who probably knew more about meter than Milton or God, let me copy out a few lines of his on the matter. (They come from a delightful late poem called "How Hard It Is to Keep from Being King When It's in You and in the Situation")
I'm not a free-verse singer. He was wrong there.
I claim to be no better than I am.
I write real verse in numbers, as they say.
I'm talking not free verse but blank verse now.
Regular verse springs from the strain of rhythm
Upon a metre, strict or loose iambic.
From that strain comes the expression "strains of music."
The tune is not that metre, not that rhythm,
But a resultant that arises from them.
Tell them Iamb, Jehovah said, and meant it.
Free verse leaves out the metre and makes up
For the deficiency by church intoning.
Free verse so called is really cherished prose,
Prose made of, given an air by church intoning.
It has its beauty, only I don't write it.
The whole thing in a nutshell is in those five lines that begin, "Regular verse..."
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