Editing Anapaest (section)

==Examples==
===Trimeter===
Here is an example from [[William Cowper]]'s "Verses Supposed to be Written by Alexander Selkirk" (1782), composed in anapaestic [[trimeter]]:

:''I must '''fin'''ish my '''jour'''ney a'''lone'''''

===Tetrameter===
An example of anapaestic tetrameter is the "[[A Visit from St. Nicholas]]" by [[Clement Clarke Moore]] (1823):

:''Twas the '''night''' before '''Christ'''mas and '''all''' through the '''house'''''

The following is from [[George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron|Byron]]'s "[[The Destruction of Sennacherib]]":

:''The As'''syr'''ian came '''down''' like a '''wolf''' on the '''fold'''''
:''And his '''co'''horts were '''gleam'''ing in '''purp'''le and '''gold'''''
:''And the '''sheen''' of their '''spears''' was like '''stars''' on the '''sea'''''
:''When the '''blue''' wave rolls '''night'''ly on '''deep''' Gali'''lee'''.''

===Hexameter===
An even more complex example comes from [[William Butler Yeats|Yeats]]'s ''[[The Wanderings of Oisin]]'' (1889). He intersperses anapests and [[Iamb (foot)|iambs]], using six-foot lines (rather than four feet as above). Since the anapaest is already a long foot, this makes for very long lines.

:''Fled foam underneath us and 'round us, a wandering and milky smoke''
:''As high as the saddle-girth, covering away from our glances the tide''
:''And those that fled and that followed from the foam-pale distance broke.''
:''The im'''mor'''tal de'''sire''' of im'''mor'''tals we '''saw''' in their '''fac'''es and '''sighed'''.''

The mixture of anapaests and iambs in this manner is most characteristic of late-19th-century verse, particularly that of [[Algernon Charles Swinburne]] in poems such as ''[[The Triumph of Time]]'' (1866) and the choruses from ''[[s:Atalanta in Calydon/Text|Atalanta in Calydon]]'' (1865). Swinburne also wrote several poems in more or less straight anapaests, with line-lengths varying from three feet ("Dolores") to eight feet ("March: An Ode").

===Heptameter===
[[Neutral Milk Hotel]]'s song "[[In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (song)|In the Aeroplane Over the Sea]]" can be described as mainly being written in anapaestic heptameter, or two dimetric lines followed by a trimetric one. At the end of the verses there is a critic monometer and a line that is a variation of an iambic pentameter.

:''What a '''beau'''tiful '''face'''''
:''I have '''found''' in this '''place'''''
:''That is '''circ'''ling '''all''' 'round the '''sun'''''
:''What a '''beau'''tiful '''dream'''''
:''That could '''flash''' on the '''screen'''''
:''In a '''blink''' of an '''eye''' and be '''gone''' from '''me'''''
:'''''Soft''' and '''sweet'''''
:''Let me '''hold''' it '''close''' and '''keep''' it '''here''' with '''me'''''

===Comic poetry===
The anapaest's most common role in English verse is as a comic metre: the foot of the [[Limerick (poetry)|limerick]], of [[Lewis Carroll]]'s poem ''[[The Hunting of the Snark]]'' (1876), [[Edward Lear]]'s ''[[s:The Book of Nonsense|The Book of Nonsense]]'' (1846), ''[[Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats]]'' (1939) by [[T. S. Eliot]], a number of [[Dr. Seuss]] books, among other examples.