Poetry Term: Accentual-Syllabic Verse

The standard system of verse composition in England since the 14th century. The meter relies on the number of stresses and syllables in any given line. Iambic pentameter anybody?

Example:

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

From Lord Byron’s She Walk in Beauty, a poem written in iambic tetrameter.