Explore the Craft of Writing Poetry The Frame II The Couplet
An octosyllabic couplet or short couplet is two iambic or trochaic tetrameter lines, often rhymed. Octosyllabic could also refer to any couplet of 8 syllable lines.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
--- Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening