Syllabic verse stress accent (as English does). This means that the French metric line is generally determined by the number of syllables. The most common metric lengths are the ten-syllable line ("décasyllabe"), the eight-syllable line ("octosyllabe") and the twelve-syllable line (the so-called "alexandrine"). Special syllable counting rules apply to French poetry. A silent or mute 'e' counts as a syllable before a consonant, but not before a vowel (where "h aspiré" counts as a consonant). When it falls at the end of a line, the mute "e" is hypermetrical (outside the count of syllables). Polish syllabic verse is similar to French. The
Metre (poetry) Catullus 51 (itself an homage to Sappho 31): The Sapphic stanza was imitated in English by Algernon Charles Swinburne in a poem he simply called "Sapphics": The metrical system of Classical Arabic poetry, like those of classical Greek and Latin, is based on the weight of syllables classified as either "long" or "short". The basic principles of Arabic poetic metre "Arūḍ" or Arud ( ') Science of Poetry ( '), were put forward by Al-Farahidi (786 - 718 CE) who did so after noticing that poems consisted of repeated syllables in each verse. In his first book, "Al-Ard" ( ""),