Long Metre

Long metre is a way of writing poetry that has a very specific pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. This pattern helps to give the poem a certain rhythm or beat that makes it sound pleasing to our ears.

When you say a word out loud, some syllables are said more loudly or forcefully than others. These are the stressed syllables. The syllables that are not stressed are called unstressed syllables.

In long metre, each line of poetry has four groups of stressed and unstressed syllables. The pattern goes like this:

- Unstressed syllable
- Stressed syllable
- Unstressed syllable
- Stressed syllable

So if we were to read a line of long metre poetry out loud, it might sound something like this:

Da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM

This pattern repeats for each line of the poem, which can make it sound very rhythmic and almost like a song.

Some hymns and religious songs are written in long metre, which is why they often have a very sing-songy feel to them.

In summary, long metre is a way of writing poetry with a specific pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that creates a rhythmic and musical effect.