What is this poetic meter?

A stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one is an anapest. One stress followed by

two unstressed syllables (/_ _ ) is a dactyl. A four-beat line is tetrameter. (Eight beats, I think is called octameter or something).

In real life, a lot of poetry has variations on these meters, so it's possible that you've read a poem with this pattern before.

i'm afraid that @Rebecca has mixed up 2 diverse factors of poetry. certain, meter is the basic underlying rhythmic progression, even if it isn't a similar ingredient because the speed (quickly or slow) at which the language progresses. Meter, in English-language poetry, describes the particular repeated progression of alternating lower than pressure and unstressed syllables. you particularly could get an introductory textbook on poetry and think about meter there. it really is a marginally complicated topic.