A quatrain is a poem or a stanza within a poem that consists of four lines. It is the most common of all stanza forms in European poetry. Poetry (ancient Greek: poieo = create) is an art form in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ... In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. ...

In its narrow meaning, the term is restricted to a complete poem consisting of only four lines. In its broader sense, it includes any one of many four-verse stanza form. Poetry (ancient Greek: poieo = create) is an art form in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ... In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. ...

Basic forms

• abab (from "The Unquiet Grave")

"The wind doth blow today, my love

And a few small drops of rain;

I never had but one true-love

In cold grave she was lain.

• xbyb (from "The Wife of Usher's Well")
  

There lived a wife at Usher's Well,

And a wealthy wife was she;

She had three stout and stalwart sons,

And slept with them out at sea.

• aabb (from William Blake, "The Tyger")
  

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

• abba, also called the envelope stanza or introverted quatrain (from Tennyson In Memoriam)

Strong Son of God, immortal Love,

Whom we, that have not seen thy face,

By faith, and faith alone, embrace,

Believeing where we cannot prove;

• aaxa, or the Omar Khayyám stanza (also known as Rubaiyat)

Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night,

Has flung the Stone that puts the stars to flight:

And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught

The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of light.

William Blake in an 1807 portrait by Thomas Phillips. ... Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Persian: رباعیات عمر خیام) The Rubáiyát (Arabic: رباعیات) is a collection of poems (of which there are about a thousand) attributed to the Persian mathematician and astronomer Omar Khayyám (1048 – 1123). ... Rubaiyat is a common shorthand name for the collection of Persian verses known more formally as the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. ...

Other forms

• The heroic stanza or elegiac stanza (iambic pentameter, rhyming ABAB; from Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard")
  

The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,

The plowman homeward plods his weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

• The Shichigon-zekku form used in Chinese and Japanese poetry. Both rhyme and rhythm are key elements, although the former is not restricted to falling at the end of the phrase.

• Ballad meter (The examples from "The Unquiet Grave" and "The Wife of Usher's Well" are both examples of ballad meter.)

• Various hymns employ specific forms, such as the common meter, long meter, and short meter.

Iambic pentameter is a meter in poetry. ... Thomas Gray Thomas Gray (December 26, 1716 – July 30, 1771), was an English poet, classical scholar and professor of history at Cambridge University. ... Shichigon-zekku (七言絶句) is the Japanese term for a poetry verse form (often of Chinese origin) consisting of four phrases each seven Chinese characters (kanji - 漢字) in length. ... 68. ... A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a god or other religiously significant figure. ...

See also

• Nostradamus, writer of prophetic quatrains

Nostradamus: original portrait by his son Cesar Nostradamus (December 14, 1503 – July 2, 1566), Latinised name of Michel de Nostredame, was one of the worlds most famous publishers of prophecies. ...

External links

• Poetic Form of Quatrain: A Research Note by Dr Manouchehr Saadat Noury.