What meter does the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty use?
the stresses (/) and absences of stress (^)
Humpty Dumpty
/ ^ / ^ / ^ ^ /
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, (tetrameter)

/ ^ / ^ / ^ ^ /
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. (tetrameter)

/ ^ / / ^ ^ / ^ / /
All the king's horses, and all the king's men, (?)
/ ^ / / ^ ^ / ^ ^ /
Couldn't put Humpty together again. (?)

Am I right in the analysis of the nursery rhyme? Could you help me with that? Does it rely on a regular number of stresses per line?I find part of the sheet music of Humpty Dumpty on the webhttp://www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/mtdVPE.asp?ppn=MN0041373.Then I wonder if the part "sat on a" should be marked "^^^".

Question

What meter does  the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty use?
the stresses (/) and absences of stress (^)  
   Humpty Dumpty
 /     ^        /  ^         /        ^     ^     /
Humpty   Dumpty   sat    on    a   wall,   (tetrameter)

/       ^         /  ^         /     ^     ^        /
Humpty     Dumpty  had   a   great   fall. (tetrameter)

 /     ^      /         /  ^         ^      /    ^       /          / 
All  the  king's   horses,  and  all  the   king's   men,     (?)
   /    ^      /         /     ^      ^ /    ^       ^ /      
Couldn't   put   Humpty    together    again.      (?)

 
Am I right in the analysis of the nursery rhyme? Could you help me with that? Does it rely on a regular number of stresses per line?I find part of the sheet music of Humpty Dumpty on the webhttp://www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/mtdVPE.asp?ppn=MN0041373.Then I wonder if the part "sat on a" should be marked "^^^".

Answer

I can't answer your question, but I would stress the last 2 lines differently from what you have written:

/ ^ ^ / ^ ^ / ^ ^ /
ALL the king's HOR ses and ALL the king's MEN

/ ^ ^ / ^ ^ / ^ ^ /
COULD n't put HUM pty to GE ther a GAIN

Not sure if that helps...

Answer

Hi Michel,

You can hear the song as taught to children here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXN3MJQ-DOs

Don's correction is spot on - the 10 syllables in the last two lines make them pentameter... Shakespeare style! :D

We find the meter by counting the pairs of weak+strong syllables.  So tetrameter=4 pairs, pentameter=5 pairs, hexameter=6 pairs, etc.  We'd normally say "iambic tetrameter", an "iamb" being a ^ / pair.  Technically it's a "trochee" when you reverse it / ^ but those specific terms are more for Greek poetry (part of my uni thesis).  "Iambic" works fine as a description as long as you have that skipping rhythm.

Answer

what about the humpty dance?

Do the Humpty Hump, come on and do the Humpty Hump

Answer

Yeah, I like Don's better!  :)

Answer

My poetry teacher could just look at this and know, unfortunately they don't really teach meter to most students anymore so I'm not great with this, but here's my attempt: 

/^ /^ ^^ ^/ 
/^ /^ ^^ ^/ 
^^ ^/ ^^ ^^ ^/ 
^^ ^/ ^^ ^^ ^/