“The Windhover” closely follows the rules of the Petrarchan sonnet. It is divided into an octet and sestet with a set rhyme scheme, though the use of repeated words modifies this rhyme scheme a bit. Hopkins also uses enjambment—breaking a line in the middle of a sentence or phrase—for metrical and rhetorical effect, most glaringly with the enjambment of “kingdom” to “king / dom,” thus keeping the rhyme and emphasizing the “king” in “kingdom.”

The real innovation in this poem’s form, though, is the meter. Hopkins invented a meter called “sprung rhythm.” The point of this metrical system is to mimic natural speech in a way that feels more natural and traditional than iambic pentameter, which can be rigid and overly sing-song. Sprung rhythm also gives the poet more control over line length because instead of counting syllables the writer counts only stressed syllables. Each line should have equal numbers of stresses but can have however many unstressed syllables the poet wants. This gives each line its own unique length and character while still keeping the pattern of stresses consistent.