Scan the following lines from Lowell's poem to identify the spondee. By placing the accent mark (') over stressed syllables and the (-) over the unstressed syllables.

Who loved his charge but never loved to lead'
One whose meek flock the people loved to be,
Not lured by any cheat of birth.

who LOVED his CHARGE but NEver LOVED to LEAD;

ONE whose MEEK FLOCK the PEOple LOVED to BE,
not LURED by ANy CHEAT of BIRTH

The spondee is "meek flock."

Who loved his charge but never loved to lead'

To identify the spondee in these lines from Lowell's poem, we need to find pairs of stressed syllables in consecutive words. Here's how you can scan the lines:

1. "Who loved his charge but never loved to lead" - We start by placing an accent mark (') over the stressed syllables. In this line, the stressed syllables are "loved," "charge," "never," "loved," and "lead." The unstressed syllables are "Who," "his," "but," "to."

Who' loved' his' charge' but' nev'er' loved' to' lead'

2. "One whose meek flock the people loved to be" - Again, place an accent mark (') over the stressed syllables. In this line, the stressed syllables are "One," "meek," "flock," "peo-," and "loved." The unstressed syllables are "whose," "the," "ple," "to," and "be."

One' whose' meek' flock' the' peo'-ple' loved' to' be'

By doing this, we can now see the spondee in the lines:

- In the first line, the spondee is "loved to" ("loved' to'").
- In the second line, the spondee is "flock the" ("flock' the'").

Hope this helps!

http://server.riverdale.k12.or.us/~bblack/meter.html

Give it a try, and let us know what you come up with. You can't put the marks ' and - over syllables on this website, but if you put stressed syllables in CAPS and unstressed in lower case, it'll work.

Here's the first line:
who LOVED his CHARGE but NE ver LOVED to LEAD (10 syllables; 5 iambs; therefore, it's called iambic pentameter)

need help with this too!

who LOVED his CHARGE but NE ever LOVED to LEAD;

ONE whose MEEK flock the PEO ple LOVED to BE,
not lured by a ny cheat of birth