Sestina
Rules quoted from the poets.org glossary; examples only from public-domain poems.
The rules, quoted
The sestina is a complex, thirty-nine-line poem featuring the intricate repetition of end-words in six stanzas and an envoi.
the repetition of the initial six end-words of the first stanza through the remaining five six-line stanzas, culminating in a three-line envoi.
1. ABCDEF 2. FAEBDC 3. CFDABE 4. ECBFAD 5. DEACFB 6. BDFECA 7. (envoi) ECA or ACE
In place of a rhyme scheme, the sestina relies on end-word repetition to effect a sort of rhyme.
Our explanation written by Tale of the Muse
A sestina is thirty-nine lines: six six-line stanzas and a three-line envoi. It doesn't rhyme in the usual way. The six end-words of the first stanza return in a fixed rotation through the other five, in the order the glossary prints, and the envoi gathers them again, as ECA or ACE.
Our plain-language restatement of the glossary rules above. It adds no facts of its own.
Example
No public-domain example is shown for this form.