An anapaest is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. It consists of two short syllables followed by a long one. It may be seen as a reversed dactyl.
Here is an example from Cowper, a line with three anapaestic feet:
- I am out of humanity's reach
- The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold
- And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold
- And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea
- When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
- Fled foam underneath us and 'round us, a wandering and milky smoke
- As high as the saddle-girth, covering away from our glances the tide
- And those that fled and that followed from the foam-pale distance broke.
- The immortal desire of immortals we saw in their faces and sighed.