Headless verse

by George Dance 

Headless verse, or acephalic verse, is a verse (a line of poetry written in meter ) that is missing its ordinary first syllable.

Use in English
Headles verse is commonly used in iambic meters, which make up the majority of poems written in English. (Blank verse, sonnets, heroic couplets, ballad stanzas, and common meter are all use iambic meters). In headless iambic verse, the first foot is a single stressed syllable. This is different from trochaic substitution (in which the first foot is a two-syllable trochee) - but in the same way it allows the poet to both start and end a line with stressed syllables.

Examples
Headless verse can be found either as variations within iambic meter, or used as its own. As a variation, it draws attention to a line:


 * Black velvet, crossed by lines of red and white


 * Shining beads, bright rosaries of light


 * (Busride on a Summer Night, George Dance)

As a meter of its own, the use of headless iambic rather than normal iambic verse can completely change the sound of a poem. Compare this example of iambic tetrameter by as in this example of headles iambic tetrameter by W.H. Auden:

with this example of headless iambic tetrameter by W.H. Auden. (Note how regular iambic tetrameter is used as a variation in one line):


 * Lay your sleeping head, my love,
 * Human on my faithless arm;
 * Time and fevers burn away
 * Individual beauty from
 * Thoughtful children, and the grave
 * Proves the child ephemeral:
 * But in my arms till break of day
 * Let the living creature lie,
 * Mortal, guilty, but to me
 * The entirely beautiful.

--W. H. Auden



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