Sapphic stanza
Rules quoted from the poets.org glossary; examples only from public-domain poems.
The rules, quoted
Sapphics are made up of any number of four-line stanzas
The first three lines of the sapphic contain two trochees, a dactyl, and then two more trochees.
The shorter fourth, and final, line of the stanza is called an "Adonic" and is composed of one dactyl followed by a trochee.
Our explanation written by Tale of the Muse
Sapphics are four-line stanzas, any number of them. Each of the first three lines runs two trochees, a dactyl and two more trochees; the shorter fourth line, called the Adonic, is one dactyl and a trochee.
Our plain-language restatement of the glossary rules above. It adds no facts of its own.
A public-domain example
Public domain in the US: the ebook's front matter prints 1904, before 1931, as the front matter quoted below shows. Only the opening lines are shown. The example illustrates the form; the rules above come from the glossary, not from the poem.
All the night sleep came not upon my eyelids,
Shed not dew, nor shook nor unclosed a feather,
Yet with lips shut close and with eyes of iron
Stood and beheld me.
Project Gutenberg ebook #35402 · our check found this text on October 31, 2026
Original publication, from the ebook
POEMS & BALLADS (FIRST SERIES) By Algernon Charles Swinburne 1917 LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN First printed ( Chatto ), 1904 Reprinted 1904, '09, '10, '12