A poem, unit or stanza of four lines of verse, usually with a rhyme scheme of abab or its variant, xbyb. It is the most common stanzaic form.
NOTE: The popular abab rhyme scheme, as in Wordsworth's She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways, is sometimes referred to as alternate rhyme or cross rhyme. For In Memoriam,Tennyson used an abba scheme, often called envelope rhyme. Two other rhyming possibilities are aabb, which can produce an antithetical effect, and monorhymed or near-monorhymed quatrains, of which the aaxa of Fitzgerald's The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, is an example. Sometimes two or more quatrains are interlocked by a chain rhyme, as in the aaba, bbcb, ccdc, dddd of Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.
(Source: Dictionary of Poetic Terms, Pathetic.org)
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