Elegiac couplet

Elegiac couplets consist of alternating lines of dactylic hexameter and pentameter: two dactyls followed by a long syllable, a caesura, then two more dactyls followed by a long syllable.

Example:

  In the Hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column,
  In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.

See also

• Meter in poetry
• Ovid