An English example of terza rima is Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind."
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
This excerpt from the poem shows the tercet stanzas of three lines each. The rhyme scheme aba bcb cdc.
Terza rima was invented by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri in the late 13th century. Dante used this poetic form throughout his epic poem "The Divine Comedy." Geoffrey Chaucer introduced terza rima to England in the 14th century in his poem "Complaints to his Lady." Thomas Wyatt, a 16th century poet credited with introducing the sonnet poetic form into English, helped popularize terza rima through his poetry and satires.
Terza rima is still used by poets today. Examples of terza rima are "Terza Rima" by Adrienne Rich, "The Yachts" by William Carlos Williams, and "Sow" by Sylvia Plath. Twentieth Century English terza rima seems to incorporate more slant rhymes. A slant rhyme focuses more on the ending consonant rather than the vowel sounds. An example can be found in an excerpt from Sylvia Plath's "Sow."
Thus wholly engross
The great grandam!--our marvel blazoned a knight,
Helmed, in cuirass,
Unhorsed and shredded in the grove of combat
By a grisly-bristled
Boar, fabulous enough to straddle that sow's heat.
"Knight," "combat" and "heat" don't rhyme. But they share ending consonant sounds so they would be considered a slant rhyme.
Another form of terza rima is the terza rima sonnet. In Robert Frost's "Acquainted with the Night," you can see an example of the terza rima sonnet:
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
O luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
In the terza rima sonnet, the last stanza is a couplet, it has two lines instead of three. The rhyme scheme for the last two stanzas in the terza rima sonnet is aba bb.