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
Alexandrine as the second (rarely the first) line of heroic couplets, or even more distinctively as the third line of a triplet. In his "Essay on Criticism", Alexander Pope denounced (and parodied) the excessive and unskillful use of this practice: <poem style="margin-left:2em"> Then at the last and only couplet fraught With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, A needless Alexandrine ends the song, That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. (lines 354-357) </poem> The Spanish "alejandrino" is a line of 7+7 syllables, probably developed in imitation of the French alexandrine. It was used beginning about 1200 for