A lyric metre named after the Greek poet Archilochus.

The metre is made up of two pairs of intermittant catalectic dactylic hexameter and hemiepes (half a dactylic pentameter, or two and a half dactyls) in the following scheme:

-^^/-^^/-^^/-^^/-^^/--
-^^/-^^/-
-^^/-^^/-^^/-^^/-^^/--
-^^/-^^/-

(Each of the dactyls (-^^) can be replaced by Spondees (--) except for the fifth foot of the hexameter. The last syllable of the last feet can be replaced with a short one)

The Caesura will usually appear after the first syllable of either the third or fourth foot. Rarely it will appear between the two short syllables of the third foot.

Example (in Latin):

 -  -/- ^  ^/-  :  ^ ^/-    - /  - ^ ^/ - - 
Diffugere nives,: redeunt iam gramina campis
-  ^ ^/-   ^  ^/ -
arboribusque comae;
 - - / -  ^  ^/-  : - / -  -/ -  ^^/ - -
mutat terra vices,: et decrescentia ripas
  - ^ ^ /  - ^ ^/-
flumina praetereunt;

(Hor. Od. IV, VII 1-4)

* - long or stressed syllable; ^ short or unstressed syllable; : caesura.

Love You Less

Sometimes I wake in the morning
And you are my first thought.
And I am not awake enough to remember the hurt you caused.
For a tiny moment I am lost in happiness and lost in you.
Then the world rises and falls into place around me.
And my heart seems not to belong where it rests.
It aches to be with you and away from
Both at the same time
And I am suddenly aware that I love you still.
Love you for what you are,
For what you are not
And for all that you can be.
All that I can do is push you to the shadows of my mind
And hope that tomorrow I will love you less.

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