Iambically

Appealing to the reader's ear in his analysis of "A Toccata of Galuppi's" (1855), Tucker is able to reproduce that contrast, noting how Browning tips the "full regularity" of the meter in the opening stanza, trochaically, rather than iambically (p.

Although the first syllable of "overseas" is in a position of iambic metrical stress, in Anglo-Saxon verse, prefixes such as "over-" ("ofer-" in Old English) are always unstressed; hence the alliterative stress falling on the "s" sound in "overseas" Similarly, the iambically stressed "still" does not alliterate because, in alliterative verse, prepositions tend not to be stressed; and though "swarmed" is iambically unstressed, in alliterative verse, where unstressed syllables are largely discretionary, verbs, especially significant ones, are more likely to be stressed.