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quatrain
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Illustration of "The Lamb" from "Songs of Innocence" by William Blake, 1879. poem; poetry
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quatrain

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quatrain, a piece of verse complete in four rhymed lines. The word is derived from the French quatre, meaning “four.” This form has always been popular for use in the composition of epigrams and may be considered as a modification of the Greek or Latin epigram. The commonest in English poetry is the ballad stanza, an outgrowth of the church hymn, in iambic metre rhyming abcb, with alternating four and three stresses to the line. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, in In Memoriam used an iambic stanza rhyming abba. Though he did not invent it, it is often called the In Memoriam stanza.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Michael Ray.