Note 45 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
The usual and most convenient way of indicating stanzaic structure is with small italic letters for the rimes and either superior or inferior numbers for the number of stresses in each line. Thus Landor's Rose Aylmer:
Ah, what avails the sceptred race! Ah, what the form divine! What every virtue, every grace! Rose Aylmer, all were thine.
is described as a4b3a4b3. The repetition of a whole line is indicated by a capital letter. When all the lines are of the same length, one exponent figure suffices, as abba4 for the In Memoriam stanza.