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Arrangement of words in a rhythmic pattern, which may depend on the length of syllables (as in Greek or Latin verse), or on stress, as in English. Classical Greek verse depended upon quantity, a long syllable being regarded as occupying twice the time taken up by a short syllable.

In English verse syllables are either stressed (strong) or unstressed (weak), and are combined in feet, examples of which are: iamb (unstressed/stressed); trochee (stressed/unstressed); spondee (stressed/stressed); pyrrhic (unstressed/unstressed); anapaest (unstressed/unstressed/stressed); and dactyl (stressed/unstressed/unstressed).

Rhyme (repetition of sounds in the endings of words) was introduced to Western European verse in late Latin poetry, and alliteration (repetition of the same initial letter in successive words) was the dominant feature of Anglo-Saxon poetry. Both these elements helped to make verse easily remembered in the days when it was spoken rather than written.

Form
The Spenserian stanza (in which Spenser wrote The Faerie Queene) has nine iambic lines rhyming ababbcbcc. In English, the sonnet has 14 lines, generally of ten syllables each; it has several rhyme schemes.

Blank verse, consisting of unrhymed five-stress lines, as used by Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Milton, develops an inner cohesion that replaces the props provided by rhyme and stanza. It became the standard metre for English dramatic and epic poetry. Free verse, or vers libre, avoids rhyme, stanza form, and any obvious rhythmical basis.

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