Traditional blank verse is composed of lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter, which means lines of ten syllables with the accent on the first syllable of each pair of syllables. A common example is the work of Shakespeare, whose plays are written in this form. In the line, “If music be the food of love, play on” (Twelfth Night, act 1, scene 1, line 1), note the TA-dum TA-dum TA-dum TA-dum TA-dum rhythm. Defined more loosely, blank verse can mean any unrhymed poetry, only slight attention being given to the structure of iambic pentameter. “Originally” falls into this category.

Less than a third of the lines in “Originally” have exactly ten syllables, most having eleven or twelve. Nonetheless, stanza 1 contains four ten-syllable lines in a row, lines 2 through 5, and the iambic pentameter is readily recognized in “which fell through the fields, our mother singing / our father's name to the turn...