The Quatrain of Seven Steps seven strides such that Cao Pi is convinced of his innocence. Cao Zhi does so, and Cao Pi becomes so flustered with emotion that he spares his brother, although he later exacts punishment upon Cao Zhi in the form of demotion. The poem itself is written in the traditional "five-character quatrain" style and is an extended metaphor that describes the relationship of two brothers and the ill-conceived notion of one harming the other over petty squabbling. There exists two versions of the poem, one being six lines in length and the other four. The former is generally thought to be
Decasyllabic quatrain lines of verse in 304 stanzas, each with a period at the end to show a "completeness" in each stanza. While the form had achieved fame with other poets of Dryden's era and was considered "fashionable" by figures of the literary world, Dryden's poem quickly became known as the standard-bearer of the genre. In 1751, Thomas Gray published "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard", composed in the heroic stanza. Written in iambic pentameter, the poem followed the same metrical and structural patterns seen in "Annus Mirabilis", but the use of the poetic form in an elegy gave it the title