[170] There are examples, as in the Vie de Saint Léger and in Alberic of Besançon's fragmentary poem on Alexander, but few of them, and the couplet soon conquers.
Buona pulcella fut Eulalia, } rhyme.
Bel auret corps, bellezour anima. }
Voldrent la veintre li deo inimi } assonance.
Voldrent la faire diaule servir. }
[172] Not to the present writer, nor, he thinks, to any one who is really familiar with the Chansons de geste.
A book of verses underneath the bough,
A jug of wine, a loaf of bread—and thou
Beside me singing in the wilderness—
Oh! wilderness were Paradise enow!
I seal myself upon thee with my might,
Abiding always out of all men's sight,
Until God loosen over sea and land
The thunder of the trumpets of the night—
The only difference of these is that FitzGerald, following, I believe, his Persian original, left the third lines quite blank, while Mr. Swinburne rhymed these in adjacent stanzas.
[175] For examples see above, Book II. Chap. VI. pp. [209], [210].