In this analysis, a wide variety of Aeolic verses (whether in Sappho and Alcaeus, or in later choral poetry) are analyzed as a choriambic nucleus (sometimes expanded, as just mentioned), usually preceded by anceps syllables and followed by various single-short sequences (e.g. u – , u – u – , and, by the principle of brevis in longo, u – u – – , u – – , – ), with various additional allowances to accommodate the practice of the later poets.
Ancient metricians such as Hephaestion give us a long list of names for various Aeolic lengths, to which modern scholars have added.
The following are the names for units with an unexpanded "choriambic nucleus" (i.e.: – u u – ): u – – x x – u u – u – – (hipp) x – u u – u – – (^hipp) – u u – u – – u – x x – u u – u – (gl) x – u u – u – (^gl) – u u – u – – x x – u u – – (pher) x – u u – – (^pher) – u u – – Comparison, with "choriambic nucleus" emphasized: Because the Alexandrian edition of Sappho's works divided the poems into books mostly based on their meter, an overview of its contents is a convenient starting point for an account of the Lesbian poets' meters.
Sappho and Alcaeus' poetic practice had in common, not just the general principles sketched above, but many specific verse forms.
The versification of Pindar and Bacchylides' 5th century BC choral poetry can largely be divided into dactylo-epitrite and "aeolic" types of composition.
Idyll 29, a pederastic love poem, "which is presumably an imitation of Alcaeus and opens with a quotation from him,"[11] is in the same meter as Book II of Sappho.
Also in the third century BC, a hymn by Aristonous[12] is composed in glyconic-pherecratean stanzas, and Philodamus' paean to Dionysus[13] is partly analyzable by Aeolic principles.
princeps Aeolium carmen ad Italos deduxisse modos I was able to be the first to bring Aeolian song to Italian measures.
The ode to Rome (Supplementum Hellenisticum 541) in Sapphic stanzas by "Melinno" (probably writing during the reign of Hadrian) "is an isolated piece of antiquarianism.
Poets in English such as Isaac Watts, William Cowper, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Allen Ginsberg, and James Wright have used the Sapphic stanza.