Spondees consist of two long syllables next to each other.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918.



13. Pied Beauty





GLORY be to God for dappled things—

   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

     For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

   Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;

     And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.



All things counter, original, spare, strange;

   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

     With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

       Praise him.





Spondee is a cool word.