The verse is actually Iambic Heptameter--The shape note terms are based on the terms for analyzing verse but they are a bit ideosyncratic--check here Terms for Poetic Analysis">Click here when we talk about folk songs, we are really talking about poetry, and the terminology can be very helpful--

The melody features a a rest at the end of each line that is the equivalent of an eight iamb which is one of the little tricks that composers used to even out the odd length phrases that were standard in poetry and the older type of music that accompanied it, back in the Renaissance--

Those of us who lean "Balkan" know that the iamb translates into a 5/4 musical measure, and that there is a Bulgarian Folk Dance called Pajdushko(spell it like you want--Bulgarians use Cyrillic characters) that accompanies the singing of iambic ballads--

Weirdo that I am (b), I started playing this in 5/4 and it is a perfect Bulgarian Pajdushko!--This may not be big news for anyone normal, but there is basically only one 5/4 Bulgarian melody that anyone much uses, so it is sort of cool to find another one--

Mark mentions that this is called common meter, and it sure is--and has been for along time--most interesting thing to note is that, most likely, common meter songs were originally in 5/4--