Quintain is also known as a quintet. It is any poetic piece made of stanza with five lines. However, quintain poems do not have some key restrictions. They can contain any line length or meter. Therefore a poem is said to be quintet or quintain when it has 5 lines.
Read Also: Quatrain – 4 Line Poems
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Example of Quintain (Poems With 5 Lines)
Poetry is versatile. Its writing varies from writer to writer. Poets can paint pictures with words in so many forms. They can do this by writing poems in just five lines or deciding their poems in five lines, and stanzas. In this section, we shall check out some types of poems with 5 lines.
Pentastich Quintain
Pentastich Quintain is a poem with blank or free verse type of quintain and has no specific meter.
Example of Quintain
Written By Ryter Roethicle
Title: Sempre Oscurita
The loss of a lover breaks your heart
Scattering your soul
Into the grey hole of Purgatory
No longer destined together to Heaven
And never deserving of Hell.
It scourges the body and flays the flesh
Til only the bones remain as a useless skeleton
That once was a vibrant loving being
Dashing through the waves
On the soft sandy beaches of love.
Now the tide has receded
And the sand is coated in bitter salt
From tears of loss and recrimination.
Time like the tide will wash away tears
But will never be able to fill the empty heart.
Envelope Quintain
Envelope Quintain mostly follows the rhyme scheme ABBBA or ABCBA. This type do not have a specific measurement or foot.
Example of Envelope Quintain
Written By Ryter Roethicle
Title: Opening My Toybox
Opening my toybox after all this time
Those within saw my look and my shame,
They knew of my life and was not to blame.
So I spoke with, Kanga and Wambi again,
Clearing memories covered in dust and grime
Read Brief History Of English Literature – Simplified
English Quintain
English Quintain is a type of Quintains that follows the rhyme scheme ABABB. With English Quintains too, they do not have any set of measurements or feet just like Envelope Quintain.
Example of English Quintain
Written By: Percy Bysshe Shelley
Title: Ode To A Skylark
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
Sicilian Quintain is somehow special than the other type of quintain. They mostly follow the rhyme scheme ABABA. Most people usually use iambic pentameter to write this type of poem.
Examples of Sicilian Quintain
Written By: Philip Larkin
Title: Home Is So Sad
Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft
And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music on the piano stool. That vase.
Spanish Quintain
The Spanish Quintain is also known as Quintilla. It is a type that mostly comes with iambic tetrameter or eight syllables and its rhyme scheme also differs. But this type has more than two lines within the poem do not rhyme. It has the following rhyme scheme ABBAA or AABBA.
Example of Spanish Quintain
Written By: Pat Bibbs
A flickering flame, on the wall
The sound of a coyotes call
The desert winds, singing at night
Sandstorms dancing, in the moonlight
Embracing lovers, to befall.
Read Also: The Red Wheelbarrow a Poem By William Carlos Williams
Monchielle Stanza
Monchielle Stanza is a type of stanza with six syllables or iambic tetrameter. They follow the rhyme scheme ABCDC.
Example of Monchielle Stanza
Written By: Jem Farmer
Title: Arcane Blue
I dream in arcane blue
as stars begin to shine,
in sleep, I feel your love
as heart entwines with grace,
I touch the night above.
I dream in arcane blue
of days that fled the moon,
in hopes that I will find,
the one who stands by me,
and walks the same long wynd.
I dream in arcane blue
then reach to clouds on high,
embrace the stars that shine,
within the pulse of night,
and know my heart is thine.
I dream in arcane blue,
oh, goddess, queen of all,
thy love has made me one,
a torch upon my path,
to life now free and done.
