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
Sapphic stanza in Polish poetry longer lines (iambic tetrameters) and two shorter (iambic dimeters): <poem style="margin-left:2em"> But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane, In proving foresight may be vain: The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley, An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, For promis’d joy! </poem> Maria Konopnicka used Słowacki's stanza in her well-known poem with the Latin title "Contra spem spero", and in the poems "Do ziemi" ("To the soil") and in "Zima do poety" ("Winter to the poet"). In another poem, "Jej pamięci" ("To her memory"), she employed a very similar strophe, also 11/11/11/5/11/5, but rhymed AABBCC. In