The meter has a very similar effect, and could very easily make the poem feel like a nursery rhyme if careful attention isn't paid to it during a reading. Many of the poems lines are written in two groups of trochaic tetrameter -- two sets of four feet, with each foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. This is a reversal of the iamb that makes up the standard foot in much of English poetry (and prose, when scanned). There is a great regularity to this meter, which gives a sense of falling, but there are also many regular moments where this meter is broken by leaving off the final syllable: "And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door" (line 22). This gives a sense of emphasis and a sudden stop at the end of the line, like the suspenseful pause in a...
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