(To prevent confusion with positive metrical scansion, I have made the scanning bars dotted, and have doubled the foot-division line for the middle pause in the first extract.)
Hit bifel ¦ in that fo¦rest there fast ¦ by-side,
Ther woned ¦ a wel old cherl |¦| that was ¦ a couherde.
(William of Palerne.)
(Notice that the nisus towards anapæstic cadence overruns the break both in the metre and, as at "-glent," "stor," "-port" below, in the half line.)
Wende, wor¦thelych wyght ¦ vus won¦ez to seche,
Dryf ouer ¦ this dymme wa¦ter if thou ¦ druye findez,
Bryng bod¦worde to bot ¦ blysse ¦ to vus alle.
(Cleanness.)
Thenne ho gef ¦ hym god-day ¦ and wyth a¦glent laghed,
And as ho stod ¦ ho stonyed hym ¦ with ful ¦ stor wordes,
"Now he that spedes ¦ uche spech ¦ this dis¦port yelde,
Bot that ye ¦ be Gaw¦ayn hit gotz ¦ in mynde."
(Gawain and the Green Knight.)
XII. Later Middle English Period
The Alliterative Revival—Mixed.
The metrical additions, on the other hand (see [Book II].), and those poems which, while employing alliteration, subject it to metrical schemes, scan perfectly, as: