Anapaest (US
anapest) is a metrical foot made up of two unstressed syllables
followed by a stressed syllable, as in the word 'interrupt' (or, in quantitative
verse, two short syllables followed by a long one). Originally a Greek marching
beat, adopted by some Greek and Roman dramatists, the rising rhythm of
anapaestic (or anapestic) verse has sometimes been used by poets in English to
echo energetic movement, notably in Robert Browning's 'How they Brought the
Good News from Ghent to Aix' (1845):
Not a word
to each other; we kept the great pace Neck by neck, stride by stride, never
changing our place.
