Rhyming Forms: Terza Rima
The Italian poet Dante Alighieri was the first poet to use the Terza Rima form of poetry; although Geoffery Chaucer was the first to use the Terza Rima in English poetry.
The Terza Rima is written in tercets (3 line stanzas) with a closing couplet (2 line stanza). There is no limit to the number of tercets that can be written in a Terza Rima. However, they rhyme scheme is very specific. It follows this pattern:
aba, bcb, cdc, ded, efe, fgf, ghg
See here that the rhyme from the second line in each tercet becomes the rhyme used as the first and third lines in the following tercet. The Terza Rima follows this pattern until the final couplet, like this:
aba, bcb, cdc, ded, efe, ghg, fgf, ghg, hh
Examples of Terza Rima:
The Triumph of Life by Percy Bysshe Shelly (too long to post, 549 lines)
http://oldpoetry.com/poetry/4843
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