Antipast Foot

Antipast is a metrical foot used in metered poetry. It consists of a short syllable, two long syllables and a short syllable ˘ ¯ ¯ ˘. English poetry uses Qualitative meter where syllables are usually categorized as being stressed or unstressed, rather than long or short as is the case in Quantitative meter of Greek and Roman poetry. In Qualitative meter, the combination of the iambic foot ᵕ ̷  and the trochaic foot  ̷  ᵕ forms an Antipast foot. Book I, Verse 1 “Paradise Lost” by John Milton provides an example of the Antipast foot as shown below.

Choriamb Foot

Choriamb is a metron in Greek and Latin poetry consisting of four syllables in a pattern of long-short-short-long ¯ ˘ ˘ ¯ that is a trochee ¯ ˘ alternating with an iamb ˘ ¯. In English poetry, choriamb is sometimes used to describe four syllables which follow a pattern of stressed-unstressed-unstressed-stressed  ̷ ˘ ˘ ̷ . In English poetry, the choriamb is often found in the first four syllables in standard iambic pentameter verses. The following verses 6, 9 and 10 found in stanza 2 of the Homostrophic ode written by John Keats’, “Ode to Autumn” provide examples as shown below:

According to prosody, it is not uncommon for poets to vary their Iambic Pentameter, while maintaining the iamb as the dominant foot. However, convention allows that these variations must always contain only five feet. The second foot is almost always an iamb. The first foot is the one most likely to change by the use of the inversion technique. This technique counteracts the metronomic effect by substituting for an iamb another type of foot whose stress is different. So it is not unusual to see any of these (trochee, spondee, dactyl, anapest or pyrrhic) appearing in Iambic Pentameter verses. The inversion mostly tends to fall on a trochee. Another common departure from the standard Iambic Pentameter is the addition of a final unstressed syllable which creates a feminine ending or what is referred to as a weak ending.

Homostrophic Ode consists of a number of stanzas alike in structure. The poet is free to decide on the structure of the basis stanza, with respect to the:-
- number of verses in the stanza
- verse length
- rhyme scheme
in accordance with the demands of the content.
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American spelling: meter, anapest
British spelling: metre, anapaest

Molossus Foot

Molossus is a metrical foot used in metered poetry. It consists of three long syllables ( ̵̵̵̵̵        ̵̵̵̵̵        ̵̵̵̵̵  ).  In English poetry, syllables are usually categorized as being stressed or unstressed, rather than long or short as is the case in quantitative meter of Greek and Roman poetry. The molossus is very rare in English poetry, but can usually be created by using an adjective-adjective-noun combination. Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “Break, Break, Break” (in memory of Arthur Hallam) shows a molossus in verses 1 and 2 of the first stanza as shown below:

The poem “Freak Storm Smash” is loaded with the molossus foot as shown in the partial scan below:

Tribrach Foot

This trisyllable foot consists of three short vowels ( ᵕ ᵕ ᵕ ) or three unstressed syllables ( ᵕ ᵕ ᵕ ) in metered poetry. The appearance of the Tribrach in English poetry is rare, as it tends to resolve into two disyllabic feet, depending upon the foot that surrounds it.

Examples of the Tribrach foot are shown in verses  (1, 7, 24 and 28) from Robert Lee Frost’s poem “An Old Man’s Winter Night” . Frost was an American poet. He died at age 89 in 1963. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. He received four Pulitzer Prizes for poetry. His works tended to mirror rural life in New England during the early twentieth century, wherewith he used those themes to examine complex social and philosophical ideas.

An Old Man’s Winter Night

1    All out of doors looked darkly in at him
7    That brought him to that creaking room was age.
24  Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
28  It's this he does it of a winter night.

Here is the scan of the poem "Walk Through Trees" showing where the tribrach foot occurs in these three quatrains with tetrameter verses rhyming abab as shown below: