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
Metre (poetry) Catullus 51 (itself an homage to Sappho 31): The Sapphic stanza was imitated in English by Algernon Charles Swinburne in a poem he simply called "Sapphics": The metrical system of Classical Arabic poetry, like those of classical Greek and Latin, is based on the weight of syllables classified as either "long" or "short". The basic principles of Arabic poetic metre "Arūḍ" or Arud ( ') Science of Poetry ( '), were put forward by Al-Farahidi (786 - 718 CE) who did so after noticing that poems consisted of repeated syllables in each verse. In his first book, "Al-Ard" ( ""),