Poets themselves must fall, like those they sung,
Deaf the praised ear, and mute the tuneful tongue.
Somewhat more rarely, there are stanzas of three lines, called triplets, with all the lines rhyming.
Dark, deep, and cold the current flows
Unto the sea where no wind blows,
Seeking the land which no one knows.
The most common form of English verse is written in stanzas of four lines each. The rhymes may be arranged in all the combinations possible. The first and third and the second and fourth may rhyme, as in ballads:—
O Brignal banks are wild and fair,
And Greta woods are green;
And you may gather garlands there
Would grace a summer queen.
Or the first and fourth lines and the second and third may rhyme:—
Now rings the woodland loud and long,
The distance takes a lovelier hue;
And drowned in yonder living blue
The lark becomes a sightless sound.
Or the second and fourth lines may be the only ones to rhyme:—
He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small,
For the dear God who loveth us
He made and loveth all.