Octameter
Quick answer: Octameter is a verse line of eight metrical feet, one of the longest lines in English poetry. See how Poe and Tennyson used it and how to control it.
Octameter is a line of verse containing eight metrical feet, which makes it one of the longest regular lines in English poetry. An iambic or trochaic octameter runs to sixteen syllables, roughly double the standard pentameter, and holding a single rhythmic arc across that distance is a genuine technical feat. Because of that difficulty, sustained octameter is rare, and almost every famous example is a deliberate showpiece.
The eight-foot line matters less for how often it appears than for what it proves: line length is an expressive choice. Where a short line withholds, an octameter floods. Poets use it for obsession, prophecy, and voices that run on past the point of comfort, trusting the reader to be swept along rather than to pause and breathe.
How It Works
Eight feet means eight beats. A trochaic octameter, the most familiar variety, sounds like this invented line: 'Winter presses on the city, every chimney breathing slowly.' Sixteen syllables, stress first in every pair. Lines this long almost demand internal structure, so poets divide them with a strong central pause or stitch them together with internal rhyme at the halfway mark. Without such anchors, the ear loses count and the line collapses into prose. Many octameter lines are also catalectic, shedding the final unstressed syllable to close on a beat.
Where You Will See It
Poe's 'The Raven' (1845) is the canonical case, its trochaic octameter lines braced by internal rhyme so the reader never drifts. Tennyson's 'Locksley Hall' (1842) uses trochaic octameter couplets for a monologue of wounded pride that refuses to pause for breath. Later, Tennyson returned to the measure in 'Locksley Hall Sixty Years After'. Beyond these, you will mostly find octameter in translations, experiments and light verse, since few subjects can sustain sixteen-syllable lines for long without exhausting reader and writer alike.
How to Use It in Your Own Poems
Treat octameter as a special effect rather than a default. Build each line around a strong medial pause, and consider internal rhyme to mark the halves, as Poe did. Check that every line earns its full length; if a line makes sense with a foot removed, remove it. A practical compromise is to write octameter for a refrain or a single climactic stanza inside a poem of shorter lines, so the long measure arrives with force instead of fatigue.
What poets can take from this
- Anchor every octameter line with a clear pause or internal rhyme near the middle.
- Prefer trochaic movement, which keeps the long line driving forward.
- Use catalexis to end lines on a stress and stop them trailing away.
- Keep poems in octameter short; the metre tires the ear quickly.
- Read Poe's The Raven aloud once before drafting, then put it away so you find your own tune.
Try it yourself
Write a six-line poem in trochaic octameter spoken by a lighthouse keeper narrating one full turn of the lamp, using internal rhyme at the midpoint of each line to keep the long measure taut.
Questions
What famous poem is written in octameter?
Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Raven' is the best known, written largely in trochaic octameter with catalectic and shorter refrain lines. Tennyson's 'Locksley Hall' is the other standard example.
How many syllables does an octameter line have?
Sixteen in full iambic or trochaic octameter, fifteen when the line is catalectic and drops its final unstressed syllable. Triple-foot versions would run longer but are vanishingly rare.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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