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Elegiac couplet

Elegiac couplets consist of alternating lines of dactylic hexameter and pentameter: two dactyls followed by a long syllable[?], a caesura, then two more dactyls followed by a long syllable.

Example:

  In the Hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column,
  In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.

See also

Meter in poetry
Ovid

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