headless line

▪ literature

also called  acephalous line 

      in prosody, a line of verse that is lacking the normal first syllable. An iambic (iamb) line with only one syllable in the first foot is a headless line, as in the third line of the following stanza of A.E. Housman's poem “To an Athlete Dying Young”:

The time you won your town the race

We chaired you through the market-place;

Man and boy stood cheering by,

And home we brought you shoulder-high.

* * *