Sprung Rhythm
Quick answer: Sprung rhythm is Gerard Manley Hopkins's meter that counts only stresses, letting each foot carry one to four syllables and always begin on the beat.
Sprung rhythm is the metrical system devised and named by Gerard Manley Hopkins, in which only the stressed syllables are counted and each foot begins on its stress, carrying anywhere from one to four syllables. A line of sprung rhythm with five beats might hold five syllables or fifteen; what matters is the five hammer blows. Hopkins claimed he was not inventing but recovering the native rhythm of English speech, nursery rhymes and Old English verse.
The result sounds unlike anything else in Victorian poetry: dense, muscular, sometimes almost overloaded, with stresses colliding head to head. Reading Hopkins aloud for the first time is a physical shock, and that shock is the best introduction to what meter can do when it stops smoothing language and starts compressing it.
The poem
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
Gerard Manley Hopkins, 'God's Grandeur' (written 1877, published 1918)
How It Works
Standard English meter alternates stress with slack in fixed portions; Hopkins called that running rhythm. Sprung rhythm abandons the fixed portions. A foot is a stress plus whatever unstressed syllables follow before the next stress, which permits back-to-back stresses with no cushion between them. An invented four-beat example: LOOK at the LIGHT, LOOK how it BREAKS on the water. The second and third beats sit close and hard; the last foot trails three slack syllables. Hopkins supplemented the system with what he called outrides, extra unstressed syllables hanging outside the count, and he marked stresses in his manuscripts to guide readers.
Where You Will See It
Almost entirely in Hopkins himself, whose poems were published in 1918, decades after his death. The Windhover, Pied Beauty, God's Grandeur and The Wreck of the Deutschland are the showcase pieces. His influence, though, spread everywhere: Dylan Thomas's packed stressing, Ted Hughes's thudding lines and much modern free verse carry Hopkins in their bloodstream. Once you know the sound, you start hearing near-sprung effects in poets who never used the term.
How to Use It in Your Own Poems
Fix a beat count per line, then let syllables flood or starve between the beats. Push stressed syllables together at moments of intensity; the collision is the signature effect. Alliteration and internal rhyme help readers find the beats, which is why Hopkins used both so heavily. Expect your first attempts to feel congested. Writory's judges score language and emotion alongside structure, and sprung rhythm is a rare device that feeds all three when it lands.
What poets can take from this
- Count beats per line and defend that count; everything else can vary.
- Let stresses collide where the feeling peaks, as in shook foil.
- Use alliteration on beat syllables so readers can find the rhythm without markings.
- Read Hopkins aloud slowly before attempting the meter; the ear must learn it first.
- Prune slack syllables ruthlessly; sprung rhythm dies when the gaps go soft.
Try it yourself
Write a poem of eight lines, four beats each, describing a storm hitting a coastline. Somewhere in every line, force two stressed syllables to stand side by side, and use alliteration to keep the four beats audible.
Questions
What is the difference between sprung rhythm and free verse?
Sprung rhythm keeps a strict count of stresses per line, so it is genuinely metrical; only the unstressed syllables are free. Free verse fixes neither stresses nor syllables. Hopkins insisted his lines were measured, just not in the usual way.
Did Hopkins invent sprung rhythm?
He named and systematised it, but he argued the rhythm already lived in nursery rhymes, Old English poetry and everyday speech. His originality lay in building sustained literary poems on that foundation.
How do I scan sprung rhythm?
Find the stressed syllables and count them; each stress opens a foot of one to four syllables. Do not expect alternation, and treat adjacent stresses as separate feet rather than errors.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
Enter a Writory poetry contest
Enter the September contest and have your own poem read and scored. That first entry makes you a Writorian.