What Is a Quatrain in Poetry? A quatrain is a rhymed grouping of four lines in a poem. It can be a poem that has only four lines, or it can be a stanza in a longer poem. Many long ballads are written in quatrains, and you also see them as a component of Shakespearean sonnets.
A tercet is a stanza with three lines that may or may not rhyme. Tercets are also known as triplets. For example:
"Oh Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find!
I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind;
But although I take your meaning, 'tis with such a heavy mind!"
- “A Toccata of Galuppi’s,” Robert Browning
Quatrain
A quatrain is a stanza with four lines that may or may not rhyme. For example:
"He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake."
- “Stopping by Woods On a Snowy Evening,” Robert Frost
Quintain
A quintain is a stanza with five lines that may or may not rhyme. For example:
"In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,
O'er which clouds are bright'ning,
Thou dost float and run,
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun."
-“Ode to a Skylark,” Percy Bysshe Shelley
Sestet
A sestet is a stanza with six lines that may or may not rhyme. For example:
"And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love — then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink."
- “When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be,” John Keats
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Septet
A septet is a stanza with seven lines that may or may not rhyme. For example:
"But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older that we —
Of many far wiser than we —
And neither the angels in Heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;"
-“Annabel Lee,” Edgar Allan Poe
Octave
An octave is a stanza with eight lines that may or may not rhyme. For example:
"When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
'Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?'
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent"
- “Sonnet 19: When I consider how my light is spent,” John Milton
More Famous Stanzas in Poetry
If you’d like to make a study of stanzas, it’s easy to find a wealth of examples. You’ll notice them as soon as you read the first section in a poem. Usually, they’re grouped together by their rhyme pattern and/or number of lines, with a break between each stanza. Let’s take a look at some of the most widely recognized poems and enjoy a selection of their stanzas.
Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas
This famous poem by Dylan Thomas is made up of five tercets ending with a quatrain.
"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light"
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
This beloved poem by Robert Frost features four quintains, or four stanzas with five lines each.
"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;"
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The Daisy Follows Soft the Sun by Emily Dickinson
This poem by Emily Dickinson features two sestets, or two stanzas with six lines each.
"The daisy follows soft the sun,
And when his golden walk is done,
Sits shyly at his feet.
He, waking, finds the flower near.
'Wherefore, marauder, art thou here?'
'Because, sir, love is sweet!'”
Examples of Stanzas in Songs
The fun children's classic This Old Man includes all quintains.
