_Moost góod, most fáir, Or thíngs as ráre, To cáll you's lóst; For áll the cóst ... &c._ Drayton, An Amouret Anacreontic (Poets, iii. 582).
_What shóuld I sáy Since fáith is déad, And trúth awáy From mé is fléd?_ Wyatt, p. 130.
_For míght is ríht, | _I ám the kníght, Líht is níght, | I cóme by níght._ And fíht is flíht._ | The Nutbrowne Mayd, Wright's Political Songs, | line 33. p. 254. |
§ =79.= In the fourteenth century the =heroic verse= was added to these Middle English metres; a rhyming iambic line of five feet, formed after the model of the French line of ten syllables, e.g.:
_A kníght ther wás, | and thát a wórthy mán._ Chaucer, Prol. 43.
Finally, the verse used in the =tail-rhyme staves= (_rime couée_) must be mentioned. As this verse, however, usually appears only in that form in which it is broken up into three short ones which compose one half of the stave, its origin will be more properly discussed in the second Book, treating of the origin and form of the different stanzas. To begin with, however, it was simply a long line of three rhythmical sections. Indications of this are here and there found in the way in which it is arranged in MSS. and early printed books, e.g. in the first version of the _Legend of Alexius_,[126] where it is written in triple columns on the large folio pages of the Vernon MS. in the Bodleian Library:
_Sítteþ stílle withóuten stríf, | And Í will télle yóu the líf | Óf an hóly mán. Álex wás his ríght náme, | To sérve gód thought hím no sháme, | Therof néver hé ne blán._
§ =80.= These are the simplest forms of verse used in Middle English poetry; they can be varied, however, in many ways. First, they are not restricted to monosyllabic or masculine endings or rhymes, but like their French models, admit also of disyllabic or feminine rhymes. Further, the caesura, where it occurs at all, may be masculine as well as feminine. The septenary line, however, in its strict form admits only of monosyllabic caesura and disyllabic ending.
Caesura and rhyme are in this respect closely analogous. For the difference between the two kinds of caesura and between the two kinds of rhyme is, that in the case of a masculine caesura or rhyme the pause occurs immediately after the last accented syllable of the rhythmical section, whereas in the case of a feminine caesura or rhyme an unaccented syllable (sometimes even two or more unaccented syllables[127]) follows upon the last accented one before the pause takes place. Combinations of masculine caesura with masculine or with feminine line-endings or rhymes, or the reverse, are, of course, allowed and of frequent occurrence.