Long Metre

Long Metre, abbreviated L.M. or LM, is a poetic metre consisting of four line stanzas, or quatrains, in iambic tetrameter with alternate rhyme pattern a-b-a-b. The term is also used in the closely related area of hymn metres. When the poem is used as a sung hymn, the metre of the text is denoted by the syllable count of each line; for long metre, the count is denoted by 8.8.8.8 or 88.88, depending on style. It is similar to common metre (for hymns denoted as 8.6.8.6 or 86.86) which consists of four lines in alternating iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter.