Blank verse
Rules quoted from the poets.org glossary; examples only from public-domain poems.
The rules, quoted
Blank verse refers to poetry that does not rhyme but follows a regular meter, most commonly iambic pentameter .
iambic pentameter: a traditional form of rising meter consisting of lines containing five iambic feet, or ten syllables.
Our explanation written by Tale of the Muse
Blank verse doesn't rhyme but keeps a regular meter, commonly iambic pentameter, which the glossary defines as five iambic feet, or ten syllables, a line. The example below appears in the 1798 edition quoted with it.
Our plain-language restatement of the glossary rules above. It adds no facts of its own.
A public-domain example
Public domain in the US: the ebook's front matter prints 1798, before 1931, as the front matter quoted below shows. Only the opening lines are shown. The example illustrates the form; the rules above come from the glossary, not from the poem.
Five years have passed; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
Project Gutenberg ebook #9622 · our check found this text on October 31, 2026
Original publication, from the ebook
LYRICAL BALLADS, WITH A FEW OTHER POEMS. LONDON PRINTED FOR J. & A. ARCH, GRACECHURCH-STREET. 1798