In poetry, a tetrameter is a line of four metrical feet. The particular foot can vary, as follows:
Anapestic tetrameter:
"And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea" (Lord Byron, "The Destruction of Sennacherib")
"Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house" ("A Visit from St. Nicholas")
Iambic tetrameter:
"Because I could not stop for Death" (Emily Dickinson, eponymous lyric)
Trochaic tetrameter:
"Peter, Peter, pumpkin-eater" (English nursery rhyme)
Dactylic tetrameter:
Picture your self in a boat on a river with [...] (The Beatles, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds")
Spondaic tetrameter:
Long sounds move slow
Pyrrhic tetrameter (with spondees ["white breast" and "dim sea"]):
And the white breast of the dim sea
Amphibracic tetrameter:
And, speaking of birds, there's the Russian Palooski, / Whose headski is redski and belly is blueski. (Dr. Seuss)
