Catalexis occurs in accentual-syllabic meter when an unstressed syllable is regularly cut off at the end of the line--or sometimes at a regular break in the middle of the line. Usually the meter in question is trochaic--most frequently trochaic tetrameter, where catalexis is the rule rather than the exception. (Debate is possible as to whether catalectic trochaic tetrameter might just as well be called headless iambic tetrameter, but the trochaic rhythm is so insistent and so distinct from  iambic that the former choice seems best). Probably the best known poem in catalectic trochaic tetrameter is Blake's "Tyger" (even here there is an exception in line 4; see anacrusis):

                            Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
                            In the forest of the night
                            What immortal hand or eye
                            Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

                            In what distant deeps or skies
                            Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
                            On what wings dare he aspire?
                            What the hand dare seize the fire?

The dominant pattern is:  / * | / * | / * | /   This results in four strong beats with the line both beginning and ending with a beat. The line is catalectic.

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