1
That haiku-like tercet is succeeded by two small, ominous stanzas.
2
The tercet of the maidens is one of the loveliest pieces of music ever written.
3
When there are two verses the stanza is called a couplet; a three line stanza is called a tercet; a four line stanza, a quatrain.
4
The octave is made up of two quatrains and the sestet of two tercets.
5
My quatrains were tedious, and my tercets entirely too diffuse.
6
The octave is sometimes said to consist of two quatrains, and the sestet of two tercets.
7
Two groups of four and two of three are natural, two quatrains and two tercets if you prefer.
8
Read next another strictly Petrarchan sonnet, where the thought divisions of quatrains and tercets are marked with exceptional clearness, Eugene Lee-Hamilton's disillusioned "Sea-Shell Murmurs":