CHORIAMBIC VERSE or CHORIAMBICS, lyric verse based on the choriambus, a group of four syllables, – v – (i.e., choree or trochee+iamb) . It is especially characteristic of Aeolic verse, as that of Alcaeus, Sappho, and their Latin imitator Horace, but is not confined to it. Regularly, one or more choriambi are pre ceded, or followed, or both, by other groups of syllables, as sic fraItres Helenae I lucd sildera (Lesser Asclepiad).
These and other varieties are arranged into various stanzas. These are essentially metres meant for song, not recitation, and are used to express emotion, serious or trivial. See GLYCONIC, SAPPHIC METRE.
Modern music often contains choriambi, but the few attempts at these in modern verse are mere tours de force as Gilbert Murray's:— "an old I eagle, a blind I eagle who waits I hungry and cola anu still."