Quatrain - WikiHQ

A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines.

Existing in a variety of forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Persia, Ancient India, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and China, and continues into the 21st century,

O, my luve’s like a red, red rose,

That's newly sprung in June;

O, my luve’s like the melodie

That's sweetly played in tune.

</poem>

The memoriam stanza consists of the iambic tetrameter and a rhyme scheme of <math>\mathrm{ABBA}</math>.

An example can be found in Alfred Lord Tennyson's "In Memoriam A.H.H.".

So word by word, and line by line,

The dead man touch’d me from the past,

And all at once it seem’d at last

The living soul was flash’d on mine.

</poem>

An envelope stanza is a stanza that starts and ends a poem with little change of wording, although this term is also used on stanzas that have a symmetrical rhyme scheme of <math>\mathrm{ABBA}</math>.

An example can be found in William Blake's "The Tyger". (These are the first and last stanzas of the poem)

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,

In the forests of the night;

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

...

Tyger Tyger burning bright,

In the forests of the night:

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry

</poem>

The ballad stanza consists of the iambic tetrameter with a rhyme scheme of <math>\mathrm{ABCB}</math> (see ballad stanza for more details).

An example can be found in “La Belle Dame sans Merci” by John Keats.

I saw pale kings and princes too,

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci

Thee hath in thrall!’

</poem>

The Ruba'i form of rhymed quatrain was favored by Persian-language poet Omar Khayyám, among others. This work was a major inspiration for Edward FitzGerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The ruba'i was a particularly widespread verse form: the form rubaiyat reflects the plural. One of FitzGerald's verses may serve to illustrate:

Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring

Your Winter garment of Repentance fling:

The Bird of Time has but a little way

To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing.

</poem>

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References

Quatrain

See also

Notes

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