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 życia i zdrowia J. K. Mości" ("Annual song for the day of rescuing life and health of His Majesty, the King"). He also employed it in the poem "Piesek" ("A little dog"). Franciszek Karpiński made use of the analysed form in "Psalm 8. O wielkości Boga" ("Psalm 8. On God's grandeur"). He repeated it in the "Psalmu 64 część. O opatrzności" ("Part of Psalm 64. On Providence") and in the poem "Pieśń do świętych Polaków, patronów Polski" ("Hymn to the holy Poles, patrons of Poland"). Another poet, Franciszek Dionizy Kniaźnin used Sappho's stanza very frequently. Another example of Sapphic stanza