A hexameter is a verse of six feet, the heroic or epic measure of the Greeks and Romans. The sixth foot is always a spondee (two long syllables) or a trochee (a long and a short). The five first may be all dactyls (two short syllables and one long), or all spondees, or a mixture of both. The scheme of this verse then is with all the varieties which the mingling of the two kinds of feet affords. In modern poetry the hexameter has been frequently used.
In English hexameters accent is almost entirely substituted for length, and trochees generally take the place of spondees. Longfellow in his Evangeline, Kingsley in his Andromeda, and Clough in his Bothie adopted this form of verse. The following lines are specimens of dough's English hexameters: 0 let us
try, he
answered, the waters them
selves will sup
port us,
Yea very
ripples and
waves will
form to a
boat under neath us. Research Hexameter
Abbreviations
Research Hexameter
