illustrated profiles of a man and a woman set against the backdrop of a red rose

A Red, Red Rose

by Robert Burns

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Student Question

What is the meter of Robert Burns' poem "A Red, Red Rose"?

Quick answer:

The meter of “A Red, Red Rose” is called ballad meter, which is alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. This is also sometimes referred to as common meter.

Expert Answers

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The meter of the poem is what is commonly referred to as ballad meter, where the first and third lines of each stanza are written in iambic tetrameter, and the second and fourth lines of each stanza are written in iambic trimeter. An iamb is a metrical foot consisting of two syllables, one unstressed (or unaccented) followed by one stressed (or accented). A word such as “today” is an iamb; it is two syllables, one unstressed followed by one stressed: to-day. The word tetrameter means that there are four metrical feet per line; in this case, the prevailing foot is the iamb. The word trimeter means that there are three feet per line.

Let’s look at the first stanza together. I will separate syllables with spaces and feet with the “|” symbol. I will also use bold for the stressed syllables.

O my Luve | is like | a red | red rose

That’s new | ly sprung | in June

O my Luve | is like | the me | lo dy

That’s sweet | ly played | in tune

Now, the first foot of lines 1 and 3 do feature substitutions, which makes them a bit irregular; a different kind of metrical foot called an anapest (consisting of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed) is substituted for the first iamb of each of these lines, but you can see that every other foot in the stanza is an iamb. The first line has four feet, the second line has three, the third line has four feet, and the fourth line has three, following the pattern for ballad meter. The other stanzas are very regular.

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