# Short meter checker

Shape a four-line draft against 6 · 6 · 8 · 6 iambic syllables. Same syllable and stress engine as the lyriic poetry editor — private in your browser.

## A short history

Short meter (S.M. or SM) is one of the standard English hymn metres, alongside common meter (8.6.8.6) and long meter (8.8.8.8). In hymnals it is written 6.6.8.6: three lines of iambic trimeter with a longer iambic-tetrameter third line.

The named hymn metres grew out of English ballad and psalm-singing practice and were widely formalized in the eighteenth century—Isaac Watts especially—so that a text in short meter could be sung to any matching short-meter tune.

Rhyme is usually ABCB, sometimes ABAB. When a short-meter quatrain is collapsed into couplets of twelve and fourteen syllables, the result is traditionally called poulter’s measure.

## Famous poems

### Blest Be the Tie That Binds — John Fawcett

Blest be the tie that binds / Our hearts in Christian love; / The fellowship of kindred minds / Is like to that above.

Classic short-meter (6.6.8.6) hymn; often cited as the textbook S.M. example.

### Come, We That Love the Lord — Isaac Watts

Come, we that love the Lord, / And let our joys be known; / Join in a song with sweet accord, / And thus surround the throne.

From Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1707); meter listed as 6.6.8.6 in hymnals.

### A Charge to Keep I Have — Charles Wesley

A charge to keep I have, / A God to glorify, / A never-dying soul to save, / And fit it for the sky.

Often indexed as short meter (or double short meter in longer stanza settings).

## How short meter works

Hymnal short meter (S.M.) is a quatrain written 6.6.8.6: six syllables, six, eight, six, usually iambic, so that the third line has four feet and the others three. Texts in the same metre can share tunes.

lyriic’s Short meter entry uses pattern [6, 6, 8, 6] with a four-line stanza, matching that teaching grid. Rhyme and tune choice stay outside the checker.

## Iamb (da-DUM)

An iamb is a two-syllable foot with a light beat then a strong one: da-DUM. Everyday words such as “today,” “because,” and “away” often fall into that shape.

Stack iambs and you get iambic meter. Three feet make trimeter (six syllables), four make tetrameter (eight), five make pentameter (ten)—the backbone of blank verse, sonnets, and much English lyric.

When stress-aware checking is on, lyriic marks the expected weak–strong pairs from dictionary stress and compares them to the meter’s contour. Real speech bends the ideal; the marks show the target pattern, not a claim that every poem must be perfectly regular.

## Iambic stress pattern (6 / 6 / 8 / 6)

Short meter (S.M.) is iambic 6 / 6 / 8 / 6: three-foot lines stress positions 2, 4, and 6; the eight-syllable third line adds a fourth foot with strong beats on 2, 4, 6, and 8.

lyriic checks that 6.6.8.6 weak–strong contour when the stress pack is loaded. Rhyme schemes and tune pairing are not enforced.

## Notes on this form

lyriic checks the hymnal short-meter grid 6 · 6 · 8 · 6 and the iamb stress contour. Hymnal rhyme schemes (ABCB / ABAB) and tune pairing are not enforced.

## Common questions

### What is short meter?

In English hymnody, short meter (S.M.) is a four-line stanza counted 6.6.8.6: iambic trimeter on lines 1, 2, and 4, and iambic tetrameter on line 3. lyriic’s checker uses that same syllable cycle.

### Does lyriic check stress as well as syllables?

Yes. For Short meter, lyriic targets 6 / 6 / 8 / 6 syllables and the iambic weak–strong contour when the stress pack is loaded. Open the zen editor with this meter for live rulers beside each line.

### Is my draft uploaded?

No. Syllable and stress checks run locally in your browser. lyriic is local-first and does not require an account.

## Open the editor

Write in the zen editor: https://lyriic.com/

Open with Short meter meter: https://lyriic.com/write/short-meter