Metre (poetry) of over some two-and-a-half millennia. Beginning with the earlier recorded forms: the Classic of Poetry tends toward couplets of four-character lines, grouped in rhymed quatrains; and, the Chuci follows this to some extent, but moves toward variations in line length. Han Dynasty poetry tended towards the variable line-length forms of the folk ballads and the Music Bureau yuefu. Jian'an poetry, Six Dynasties poetry, and Tang Dynasty poetry tend towards a poetic metre based on fixed-length lines of five, seven, (or, more rarely six) characters/verbal units tended to predominate, generally in couplet/quatrain-based forms, of various total verse lengths. The Song poetry
Lüshi (poetry) Lüshi (poetry) Lüshi () refers to a specific form of Classical Chinese poetry verse form. One of the most important poetry forms of classical Chinese poetry, the "lüshi" refers to an eight-line regulated verse form with lines made up of five, six, or seven characters; thus: All "lüshi" forms are rhymed on the even lines, with one rhyme being used throughout the poem. Also, and definitionally, the tonal profile of the poem is controlled (that is, "regulated"). Although the idea of regulating the tonal pattern of poetry can be traced back to Shen Yue, the "lüshi" form did not reach