§ E. Line-Combination
Simple or complex.
25. Lines, composed as above of feet, can be used in English either continuously on the same or equivalent patterns, or in batches of two or more.
Rhymes necessary to couplet.
26. The batches of two almost necessarily require rhyme to indicate and isolate them, especially if the individual lines are of the same length. Other batches [stanzas] might, as far as any a priori objection goes, consist of unrhymed lines, symmetrically correspondent, or irregular [Pindaric].
Few instances of successful unrhymed stanza.
27. It is, however, found in practice, despite the examples of Campion, Collins, and one or two others, that rhymeless batching or stanza-making is very seldom successful.[28]
Unevenness of line in length.
28. There is neither a priori objection nor a posteriori inconvenience to be urged against the construction of stanzas or batches in lines of very uneven length.
Stanzas to be judged by the ear.
29. Every stanza-scheme must undergo, and is finally to be judged by, the test of the ear, and that only.
Origin of commonest line-combinations.
30. The commonest and oldest line-combinations—octosyllabic couplet, "common" or "ballad" measure, "long" and "short" measure, etc.—in some cases demonstrably, in all probably, result from the breaking up of the old long line ("fifteener" or "fourteener"), which itself came from the metricalising of the O.E. double stave.