End-stopped refers to a metrical line containing a complete phrase or sentence, or a poetic line ending with punctuation.
History of End-Stopped Lines
End-stopped lines have historically appeared in blank verse and free verse poetry, as well as poems in a closed form where there is a fixed structure and pattern present. End-stops are the opposite of enjambed lines in that an end-stopped line contains complete thoughts, phrases, or sentences. These lines give the reader moments to pause at the line break, which is ideal and supports poetic forms with set rhyme and meter.
Usually, one can tell a poetic line is end-stopped by looking to see if there is punctuation at the end. The punctuation could be internal (e.g. comma, semi-colon, colon, em dashes), or external (e.g. period, exclamation mark, question mark).
Examples of End-Stopped in Poetry
Examples of end-stopped lines are found in countless poems. Many poets interweave end-stopped and enjambed lines in their poetry, whereas others will compose poems entirely of send-stopped lines. An example of a poem using end-stopped is "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost:
...And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Another example is An Essay on Man, the lyric long poem by Alexander Pope in the 18th century. Read the following two poems composed entirely of end-stopped lines.