Metre (poetry) words made no difference to the metre. A number of other ancient languages also used quantitative metre, such as Sanskrit and Classical Arabic (but not Biblical Hebrew). Finally, non-stressed languages that have little or no differentiation of syllable length, such as French or Chinese, base their verses on the number of syllables only. The most common form in French is the Alexandrine, with twelve syllables a verse, and in classical Chinese five characters, and thus five syllables. But since each Chinese character is pronounced using one syllable in a certain tone, classical Chinese poetry also had more strictly defined rules,
Polish alexandrine Nowadays Polish alexandrine lines are often mixed with hendecasyllable ones in one poem. Polish alexandrine Polish alexandrine (Polish: "trzynastozgłoskowiec") is a common metrical line in Polish poetry. It is similar to the French alexandrine. Each line is composed of thirteen syllables with a caesura after the seventh syllable. The main stresses are placed on the sixth and twelfth syllables. Rhymes are feminine. The Polish alexandrine was introduced in the 15th century. It was borrowed from Latin poetry. It was widely used by Jan Kochanowski, the first great Polish poet, as exemplified in the first two lines of his "Lament 13",