“Halt!” – the dust-brown ranks stood fast.
“Fire!” – out blazed the rifle-blast.
It shivered the window, pane and sash;
It rent the banner with seam and gash.
—“Barbara Frietchie,”
John Greenleaf Whittier
How do these couplets move the action forward?
They tell the reader what will happen next.
They quickly link one line to the next.
They make the reader think about what happened.
They have a certain number of words per line.