Trochaic Octameter
Quick answer: Trochaic octameter is a rare sixteen syllable line built from eight trochees, made famous by Poe's The Raven. Learn how it works and how to write it well.
Trochaic octameter is a line of verse made of eight trochees, giving sixteen syllables that fall in a steady stressed-unstressed pattern. Say DUM-da eight times in a row and you have the shape of it. The line is one of the longest regular metres in English, and one of the rarest, because sustaining that falling rhythm across sixteen syllables asks a great deal of both poet and reader. When it works, it produces an incantatory, obsessive music that shorter lines cannot match.
Poets reach for trochaic octameter when they want a chant. The insistent front-loaded stress of each foot creates a drumming effect, which is why the metre suits poems about fixation, grief and the supernatural. You will meet it most often in nineteenth century verse, where its hypnotic pull was prized, and in modern poems that borrow that older machinery deliberately.
How It Works
Each trochee is a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one. Stack eight and you get a line like this original example: 'Garden shadows lengthen slowly, lamplight gutters, doors are closing.' Read it aloud and you will feel the beat land on the first syllable of every pair. In practice, poets often drop the final unstressed syllable so the line ends on a stress, a move called catalexis. A catalectic version might run: 'Midnight settles on the harbour, every boat is tied and still.' That clipped ending gives the line a firmer close and stops the rhythm from trailing off.
Where You Will See It
The famous example is Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Raven' (1845), which uses trochaic octameter with catalectic lines and heavy internal rhyme to build its trance-like dread. Poe himself wrote an essay, 'The Philosophy of Composition', explaining how deliberately he chose the metre. Tennyson used the same line in 'Locksley Hall' (1842), where the long trochaic sweep carries the speaker's bitter, rushing monologue. Both poems show the metre's signature effect: a voice that cannot stop itself.
How to Use It in Your Own Poems
Start by drafting in trochaic tetrameter, then join pairs of lines and smooth the seam. Keep your subject obsessive or urgent, since the metre amplifies repetition and circling thought. Vary the line with internal rhyme and mid-line pauses so the drumbeat does not numb the ear. Contest judges reading for structure notice when a difficult metre is sustained with purpose rather than novelty, and Writory's monthly round is a fair place to test whether yours holds up for a full poem.
What poets can take from this
- Read each draft line aloud and tap the stresses; all eight should land without forcing.
- End lines on a stressed syllable (catalexis) when you want a harder, more final close.
- Use internal rhyme at the half-line to break the sixteen syllables into audible halves.
- Choose front-stressed words (garden, silver, calling) so the trochees fall naturally.
- Limit the poem's length; even Poe kept his stanzas tight to stop the chant becoming noise.
Try it yourself
Write twelve lines of trochaic octameter spoken by someone waiting through the night for news that never comes. Let the metre's drumbeat carry their circling thoughts, and end every stanza on a stressed syllable.
Questions
What is the difference between trochaic octameter and iambic octameter?
Both have eight feet, but trochaic octameter begins each foot with a stress (DUM-da) while iambic octameter ends each foot with one (da-DUM). The trochaic version feels falling and chant-like; the iambic version feels rising and is even rarer in English.
Is The Raven really in trochaic octameter?
Yes, mostly. Poe's long lines are trochaic octameter, though many are catalectic, meaning the final unstressed syllable is dropped so the line ends on a stress. The shorter refrain lines are trochaic but with fewer feet.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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