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Explore the Craft of Writing Poetry The Frame VI. Six Line Construction Six line poetic units or groups are termed the sixain, sexain, sestet and hexastich. All of these terms can be found used synonymously. Technically the hexastich is reserved for a stand-alone, six line poem. Sixain, sexain, and sestet refer to a stanzaic unit written adjacent to other stanzas. However, the term sestet originally referred only to a six-line stanza when used with other stanzas that differ in line number, specifically in the sonnet of octave/sestet. Sixain or sexain was reserved for six line stanzas written adjacent to other 6 line stanzas such as in the Sestina. A Decade by Amy Lowell (1874-1925) When you came, you were like red wine and honey. And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness. Now you are kike morning bread, Smooth and pleasant. I hardly taste you at all for I know your savor, But I am completely nourished. Some of the more popular are: Burns Stanza Clogyrnach Cywydd llosgyrnog Fourteenth Century Stanza Gwawdodyn Heroic Sestet Venus and Adonis Stanza Italian Sestet Rime Couée