Decasyllabic quatrain famous poets such as Thomas Gray continued to use the form in works such as "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard". Shakespearean Sonnets, comprising 3 quatrains of iambic pentameter followed by a final couplet, as well as later poems in blank verse have displayed the various uses of the decasyllabic quatrain throughout the history of English Poetry. The decasyllabic quatrain with an alternating rhyme scheme is often referred to as the "heroic quatrain", the "heroic stanza" or the "four-line stave". It came to prominence in the poem "Nosce Teipsum" by Sir John Davies in 1599. Although the use of ten-syllable
Quatrain quatrain form to deliver his famous prophecies in the 16th century. There are fifteen possible rhyme schemes, but the most traditional and common are: AAAA, ABAB, and ABBA. <poem style="margin-left:3em"> 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. </poem> <poem style="margin-left:3em"> Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring Your Winter garment of Repentance fling: To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing. </poem> Quatrain A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a