Decasyllabic quatrain Decasyllabic quatrain Decasyllabic quatrain is a term used for a poetic form in which each stanza consists of four lines of ten syllables each, usually with a rhyme scheme of AABB or ABAB. Examples of the decasyllabic quatrain in heroic couplets appear in some of the earliest texts in the English language, as Geoffrey Chaucer created the heroic couplet and used it in "The Canterbury Tales". The alternating form came to prominence in late 16th-Century English poetry and became fashionable in the 17th Century when it appeared in heroic poems by William Davenant and John Dryden. In the 18th Century
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