In general, poetry is distinguished from prose by its compressed and rhythmic form. The means by which rhythm is measured and described is called meter. In Latin verse, meter depends upon the number of long and short syllables in a line, for example pentameter or hexameter, whereas in English it depends upon the accent of stressed and unstressed syllables. The various meters also have different patterns of long and short syllables which are measured in the unit called a poetic foot, for example a dactyl (long-short-short) or an anapest (short-short-long). The best known meter in Latin poetry is the hexameter, and it was perfected by Vergil.

Rhyme, the repetition of accented sounds in words, is not a feature found in Latin verse, but it is another element that characterizes poetry in English. If the rhyme sound is the very last syllable of the word, the rhyme is called masculine; if the accented sound is followed by an unaccented syllable, the rhyme is called feminine. Rhymes usually occur at the end of a line of verse, but those falling within a single line are said to be internal. Most verse forms are variations on the different combinations of rhythm and rhyme schemes.