The Goose Fish

The poem comprises five nine-line stanzas. The meter is iambic tetrameter, except for the last line of each stanza, which is shorter, making an iambic trimeter. An iamb is a poetic foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, and a tetrameter consists of four poetic feet. A trimeter consists of three feet.

The lines “But still conspiring hand in hand” (Line 14) and “Along the still and tilted track” (Line 44) are good examples of regular iambic tetrameter lines. Examples of iambic trimeter are “His hugely grinning head” (Line 18) and “To make a world their own” (Line 27).

For variety of emphasis and effect, Nemerov makes many substitutions to the basic iambic patten. In Line 1, the second foot, “long shore,” is a spondee, a type of foot that consists of two stressed syllables. In Line 3, the first foot, “Two lovers” is a spondee, as is “swift tide” in Line 6, and the second foot in Line 11, “Hard moon’s.”

In iambic verse, the substitution of a trochee for an iamb in the first foot is very common. A trochee is the opposite of an iamb, consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one.