Laisse

A laisse is a type of stanza, of varying length, found in medieval French literature, specifically medieval French epic poetry (the chanson de geste), such as The Song of Roland. In early works, each laisse was made up of (mono) assonanced verses, although the appearance of (mono) rhymed laisses was increasingly common in later poems. Within a poem, the length of each separate laisse is variable (whereas the metric length of the verses is invariable, each verse having the same syllable length, typically decasyllables or, occasionally, alexandrines.