Dryden’s “Annus Mirabilis” serves effectively as an ode to London, but it is also a marvel in the simplicity of its verse. Not written in Dryden’s usual heroic couplets, “Annus Mirabilis” is instead written in quatrains. This form seems more pleasing, both to the eyes and the ears, than the heroic couplet. Dryden’s words flow quite smoothly within this structure, and the poem adopts a pleasing, conversational tone. Dryden appears to have found some mastery in the quatrain, and he is able to confine his sentences to single quatrains. This lends a very consistent structure to the poem, and allows for easy reading, as each quatrain can essentially be read alone. For example, the second quatrain speaks of the birth of “some dire usurper” (849), while the next describes the fire’s “swelling fate” (853), the next “the rise of this prodigious fire” (857), and so on. This step-like sequence is simple but effective, and tends to make poetry easier to read