Poetry other variations of "shi" poetry, generally either a four line (quatrain, or "jueju") or else an eight line poem is normal; either way with the even numbered lines rhyming. The line length is scanned by according number of characters (according to the convention that one character equals one syllable), and are predominantly either five or seven characters long, with a caesura before the final three syllables. The lines are generally end-stopped, considered as a series of couplets, and exhibit verbal parallelism as a key poetic device. The "old style" verse ("gushi") is less formally strict than the "jintishi", or regulated
Sapphic stanza in Polish poetry from the book "Kanikuła, albo psia gwiazda" ("Canicula or dog star"). Zbigniew Morsztyn shaped his Sapphic stanzas so as to make a long chain of linked strophes, exhibiting many enjambments from one to the next stanza. He is the author of the poem "Sławna wiktoryja nad Turkami" ("The Famous Victory over the Turks"), which is an example of the use of the Sapphic stanza in an epic function. Large parts of Klemens Bolesławiusz's "Przeraźliwe echo trąby ostatecznej" ("The Horrifying Echo of Doomsday Trumpet") are composed in Sapphic stanzas. This work, which can be compared to "The Revelation of St. John"