Meaning of "four beats per line" in poetry?

Question

i'm writing an Anglo-Saxon form of poetry and i dont understand what they mean by having four hard beats per line.. Can someone please explain it to me?

Answer 1

Yes, don't listen to the silly people. In poetry, a four beat line has eight syllables, four soft beats and four hard ones. If the line is iambic, the hard beats go second, da DUM, if the line is trochaic, the hard beat goes first, DUM da.

A four beat line in iambic tertrameter (4-beat) is marked like this:

_ / _ / _ / _ /

It sounds like this:

a CLOCK is JUST a FACE of HANDS.

Answer 2

say to yourself 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and for each line

Answer 3

4 syllables per line. tap it out. "Four-syll-a-bles"