Pompous stanza is a stanza written primarily in cretic or amphimacer meter, creating a dignified, elevated, or ceremonial tone through the meter's characteristic stressed-unstressed-stressed pattern. The term "pompous" designates the stanza's grand, stately quality rather than negative pretension, referring to the formal weight and ritual dignity the repetitive cretic rhythm produces. Such stanzas are rare in English poetry due to the challenge of maintaining cretic meter across multiple lines naturally. When employed, pompous stanzas create distinctly formal, processional effects through their symmetrical, balanced structure, often lending solemnity or ceremonial grandeur to the verse.

A Pompous stanza uses inflated diction, ornate syntax, or excessive formality—can signal irony, critique of authority, or deliberate emulation of high rhetorical styles.