Sentence stress and rhythm

1. Rhythm.

Listen to these lines from a poem called Snake:

He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,

Some syllables are given more emphasis (or stress). The syllables in between are not given much stress and are spoken quite quickly. This creates a rhythm.

Listen and identify the stressed syllables in the following lines from the poem.

Practise saying the lines, stressing the appropriate syllables.

2. Another poem.

Here is a verse from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Mark the syllables where you think the stresses are.

Now, listen and repeat.