Stanza form developed by Edmund Spenser and almost certainly influenced by rhyme royal and ottava rima. Spenser's stanza has nine lines and is rhymed a-b-a-b-b-c-b-c-c. The first eight lines of the stanza are in iambic pentameter and the last line in iambic hexameter. He used this form in his epic poem The Faerie Queene. John Keats, a great admirer of Spenser, used this stanza in his poem The Eve of St. Agnes.
[n] a stanza with eight lines of iambic pentameter and a concluding Alexandrine with the rhyme pattern abab bcbc c; "the spenserian stanza was introduced by Edmund Spenser in The Faerie Queene"