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
Spenserian stanza Spenserian stanza The Spenserian stanza is a fixed verse form invented by Edmund Spenser for his epic poem "The Faerie Queene" (1590–96). Each stanza contains nine lines in total: eight lines in iambic pentameter followed by a single 'alexandrine' line in iambic hexameter. The rhyme scheme of these lines is ABABBCBCC. This example is the first stanza from Spenser's "Faerie Queene". The formatting, wherein all lines but the first and last are indented, is the same as in contemporary printed editions. <poem> Lo I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske, Fierce warres and faithfull loues shall moralize my song.