Common metre or common measure — abbreviated as C. M. or CM — is a poetic metre consisting of four lines which alternate between iambic tetrameter (four metrical feet per line, with each foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable) and iambic trimeter (three metrical feet per line, with each foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable). The metre is denoted by the syllable count of each line, i.e. 8.6.8.6, 86.86, or 86 86, depending on style, or by its shorthand abbreviation "CM". It has historically been used for ballads such as "Tam Lin", and hymns such as "Amazing Grace" and the Christmas carol "O Little Town of Bethlehem". The upshot of this commonality is that lyrics of one song can be sung to the tune of another; for example, "Advance Australia Fair", the national anthem of Australia, can be sung to the tune of "House of the Rising Sun".
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Variants
Common metre is related to three other poetic forms: ballad metre, fourteeners, and common-metre double.
Like the stanzas of the common metre, each stanza of ballad metre has four iambic lines. Ballad metre is "less regular and more conversational" than common metre. In each stanza, ballad form needs to rhyme only the second and fourth lines, in the form A-B-C-B (where A and C need not rhyme), while common metre typically rhymes also the first and third lines, in the pattern A-B-A-B.
Another closely related form is the fourteener, consisting of iambic heptameter couplets: instead of alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, rhyming a-b-a-b or x-a-x-a, a fourteener joins the tetrameter and trimeter lines, converting four-line stanzas into couplets of seven iambic feet, rhyming a-a.
The first and third lines in common metre typically have four stresses (tetrameter), and the second and fourth have three stresses (trimeter). Ballad metre follows this stress pattern less strictly than common metre. The fourteener also gives the poet greater flexibility, in that its long lines invite the use of variably placed caesuras and spondees to achieve metrical variety, in place of a fixed pattern of iambs and line breaks.
Another common adaptation of the common metre is the common-metre double, which as the name suggests, is the common metre repeated twice in each stanza, or 8.6.8.6.8.6.8.6. Traditionally the rhyming scheme should also be double the common metre and be a-b-a-b-c-d-c-d, but it often uses the ballad metre style, resulting in x-a-x-a-x-b-x-b. Examples of this variant are "America the Beautiful" and "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear".
Examples
Common metre is often used in hymns, like this one by John Newton. (see Meter (hymn))
William Wordsworth's "Lucy Poems" are also in common metre.
The first opening theme used on the dubbed version of the Japanese anime Pokémon also uses common metre.
Many of the poems of Emily Dickinson use ballad metre.
Another American poem in ballad metre is Ernest Thayer's "Casey at the Bat":
A modern example of ballad metre is the theme song to Gilligan's Island, infamously making it possible to sing any other ballad to that tune. The first two lines actually contain anapaests in place of iambs. This is an example of a ballad metre which is metrically less strict than common metre.
Another example is the folk song "House Of The Rising Sun".
"Gascoigns Good Night", by the English Renaissance poet George Gascoigne, employs fourteeners.
"America the Beautiful" by Katharine Lee Bates employs the common metre double, using a standard CM rhyme scheme for the first iteration, and a ballad metre scheme for the second.