A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, made up of four lines.

This form of poetry has been used in many ancient cultures, such as Persia, Ancient India, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and China. It is still used today in poems written in many languages.

In Iran, the quatrain has been popular since the medieval period as a form called Ruba'is. This style is an important part of Persian poetry, and famous poets like Omar Khayyam and Mahsati Ganjavi wrote poems only in this format.

Michel de Nostredame (Nostradamus) used the quatrain form to write his famous "prophecies" in the 16th century.

There are fifteen different rhyme schemes for quatrains. The most common ones are ABAA, AAAAA, ABAB, and ABBA.

Forms

• The heroic stanza or elegiac stanza is made up of iambic pentameter with a rhyme pattern of A B A B.

An example can be found in Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard."

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

• The hymnal stanza uses alternating rhymes with iambic trimeter and iambic tetrameter, with a rhyme pattern of A B C B.

An example can be found in Robert Burns's "A Red, Red Rose."

O, my luve’s like a red, red rose, That's newly sprung in June; O, my luve’s like the melodie That's sweetly played in tune.

• The memoriam stanza is made up of iambic tetrameter with a rhyme pattern of A B B A.

An example can be found in Alfred Lord Tennyson's "In Memoriam A.H.H."

So word by word, and line by line, The dead man touch’d me from the past, And all at once it seem’d at last The living soul was flash’d on mine.

• An envelope stanza is a stanza that begins and ends a poem with little change in wording. This term is also used for stanzas with a symmetrical rhyme pattern of A B B A.

An example can be found in William Blake's "The Tyger" (these are the first and last stanzas of the poem).

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? … Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry.

• The ballad stanza is made up of iambic tetrameter with a rhyme pattern of A B C B (see ballad stanza for more details).

An example can be found in "La Belle Dame sans Merci" by John Keats.

I saw pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci Thee hath in thrall!’

• The Ruba'i form of rhymed quatrain was favored by Persian-language poet Omar Khayyám and others. This work greatly inspired Edward FitzGerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The ruba'i was a widely used verse form: the term rubaiyat reflects the plural. One of FitzGerald's verses may serve as an example:

Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring Your Winter garment of Repentance fling: The Bird of Time has but a little way To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing.