Iambic pentameter

Iambic Pentameter

It is the favored scheme for English verse, Most famously when ruled Elizabeth. Will Shakespeare wrote all of his plays therein, So too CM, and many other bards. The first, the third, fifth, seventh, and the ninth Of syllables are left without a stress The rest are stressed; it mimics human speech.

Iambic Pentameter in Ruled Britannia
The Bard, of course, when called upon to write A play which mourned for Spain's departed king, Did use iambs in pentametric lines. So too when Burleigh brought him in the plot To bring the Virgin Queen back to the throne By telling tales of Briton queens of old. For Shakespeare never wrote in other forms. A player name of Quinn did once insert A line drawn from the latter in the first. And at the time a Spaniard was about. The man, a bard himself, did overlook The telling slip; but Saxons were so shocked That they did stop rehersal in its tracks. To cover their apparent breach of form Over so small and puny an affair Dick Burbage did expel Quinn from the troupe. So angry was the actor that he sought To turn his foes right over to the Dons. Alas for Spain, the constable he found Was dimmer than a lantern lacking flame. And all that came to Quinn for his attempts Was Ingram Frizer's knife. So ends the tale.