Classical Chinese poetry forms developing a complete poetic concept; this is, indeed, especially the case with the five-character line version. Also known as the Five-character-quatrain, this form of regulated verse is characterized by four lines of five characters each. Also known as the Seven-character-quatrain, this is a form of regulated verse with four lines of seven characters each. While embracing all, or most of, the "lushi" rules and regulations the "pailu" allows for a number of linked couplets with no maximum upward limit. A strict emphasis on formal parallelism is typical of the "pailu" form. Poems based on traditional structures, originally meant as lyrics
Burns stanza lyrical, subsequent uses have tended to be comic and satirical, as this passage from Burns shows: A variation on the Burns stanza employs the rhyme scheme AABCCCB, with foreshortened third and seventh lines. This form is deployed, for example, in W. H. Auden's poem "Brother, who when the sirens roar" (also known as "A Communist to Others"): Brothers, who when the sirens roar From office, shop and factory pour By cops directed to the fug Of talkie-houses for a drug, Or down canals to find a hug Auden uses similar verse forms in other poems in the collection "Look, Stranger!"