A Prayer for My Daughter its "metremes", or rhymical motifs, rather than common metrical devices. The poem also may be read to consist of straightforward iambic verse that relies on common metrical devices such as elision, acephalous lines, promotion, and metrical inversion. Lines 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8 of each stanza are iambic pentameter; lines 4, 6, and 7 are iambic tetrameter. For instance, using traditional principles of scansion, stanza two may be scanned as shown below, where syllables in all caps represent metrical beats, lower-case syllables represent metrical off-beats, the vertical bar represents the termination of a metrical foot, and apostrophes represent elisions.
Sapphic stanza in Polish poetry to Greek and Roman literature as a model. Jan Kochanowski, the most prominent of a family of poets, wrote lyrical poems, often in imitation of Horace. The classic Polish Sapphic stanza was thus 11(5+6) / 11(5+6) / 11(5+6) / 5, typically rhymed "a a b b". Jan Kochanowski used this Sapphic stanza several times in his "Cantos", "Laments", and "Psalms". An excellent example is "Lament XVI". Mikołaj Sęp-Szarzyński, who was the author of "Rymy, abo wiersze polskie" ("The rhymes or Polish poems") and Sebastian Grabowiecki, who was the author of "Setnik rymów duchownych" ("Spiritual Rhymes") also used Sapphic stanzas in