Quintain Rhyme Scheme

Do you know what a quintain rhyme scheme is? If you read this article you will know about five types of quintains and what a rhyme scheme is. You will also read examples of each one.

What Is a Quintain?

There are five main types of stanzas with five lines that you will find in long poems:

• Cinquain
• English Quintain
• Sicilian Quintain
• Quintilla
• Limerick

There are no rules about the rhyme scheme, but many follow a few basic kinds. A quintain doesn’t need to rhyme at all. Here are brief explanations of the five forms of five-line stanzas. 

• Cinquain: This is unique in its syllable count of each line. The first and last lines have two syllables. The second line has four, the third has six, and the fourth has eight. So it is 2-4-6-8-2. Here’s an example of the form:

There’s twoAnd then there’s fourAnd two plus four is sixThen two and two plus four is eightWe’re done.

• English Quintain: The rhyme scheme for English quintains is usually A-B-A-B-B. There is no set measure or foot (the number and type of syllables or feet). Quintains work well in long poems like ballads.
• Sicilian Quintain: Originally these had no set meter or form, but soon iambic pentameter was widely used. The rhyme scheme is usually A-B-A-B-A.
• Quintilla or Spanish Quintain: These lines are usually eight syllables, or Iambic Tetrameter. The rhyming scheme varies, but there are never more than two consecutive lines that rhyme. Common rhyme schemes are A-A-B-B-A and A-B-B-A-A.
• Limerick: The rhyme scheme of a limerick is A-A-B-B-A and there is no set meter or syllables. Many times the third and fourth lines are shorter than the other three.  

Examples of Quintain Rhyme Scheme

Here are examples of the five types of quintains previously explained: 

A special form of cinquain was developed by Adelaide Crapsey. Here is one of her poems called “Triad”.

These beThree silent things:The falling snow... the hourBefore the dawn... the mouth of oneJust dead.  

English quintain rhyme scheme A-B-A-B-B from “Ode to a Skylark” by Percy Bysshe Shelley

In the golden lightning                   Of the sunken sun,               O'er which clouds are bright'ning,                   Thou dost float and run,Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.  

Sicilian Quintain Rhyme Scheme A-B-A-B-A from “Home is so Sad” by Philip Larkin

Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,Shaped to the comfort of the last to goAs if to win them back. Instead, bereftOf anyone to please, it withers so,Having no heart to put aside the theft  

Quintain rhyme scheme A-B-A-A-B from “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost

I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.  

Limerick rhyme scheme A-A-B-B-A by Edward Lear

There was an Old Man with a beard,Who said, 'It is just as I feared!Two Owls and a Hen,Four Larks and a Wren,Have all built their nests in my beard!

Other Types of Stanzas in Poetry

A stanza is like a paragraph in poetry. There are different forms these stanzas can be and they can have any number of lines. These are stanzas with a certain number of lines:

• Couplet: A two line stanza that rhymes
• Triplet: three line stanza that rhymes
• Tercet: all three lines don’t rhyme
• Quatrain: four line stanza
• Quintain or quintet: five line stanza
• Sestet: six line stanza
• Septet: seven line stanza
• Octave: eight line stanza
• Spenserian: nine line stanza