The Venus and Adonis stanza is nothing but iambic pentameter rhyming ababcc, and is named for Shakespeare's narrative poem in which he used such a stanza. It seems likely that many poets have thought to employ it without even thinking of Shakespeare's poem, as just another nonce six-line stanza.

            I am obnoxious to each carping tongue
            Who says my hand a needle better fits.
            A poet's pen all scorn I should thus wrong;
            For such despite they cast on female wits,
            If what I do prove well, it won't advance--
            They'll say it was stolen, or else it was by chance.

            But shure the ancient Greeks were far more mild,
            Else of our sex why feignéd they those Nine,
            And Posey made Calliope's own child?
            So 'mongst the rest they placed the Arts Divine.
            But this weak knot they will full soon untie--
            The Greeks did naught but play the fools and lie.
                                                        --Anne Bradstreet
 

         "Venus and Adonis? Hey! that's my favorite poem!"

                                 Forced to content, but never to obey,
                                 Panting he lies and breatheth in her face;
                                 She feedeth on the steam as on a prey,
                                 And calls it heavenly moisture, air of grace;
                                 Wishing her cheeks were gardens full of flowers,
                                 So they were dew'd with such distilling showers.
                                                                    --Shakespeare

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