(These early anapæsts, as noted, are very apt to begin with dissyllabic feet. But it was no rule: in this same piece, "The Beautiful Lady of the May," occurs the line:
All the nymphs | were in white | and the shep|herd in green.
(b) Anon. in Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719, but contents often much older):
Let us drink |and be mer|ry, sing, dance, | and rejoice,
With cla|ret and sher|ry, theor|bo and voice.
The change|able world | to our joys | is unjust,
All trea|sure's uncer|tain, then down | with your dust!
On fro|lics dispose | your pounds, shil|lings, and pence,
For we | shall be no|thing a hun|dred years hence.
(c) Prior (1696):
While with la|bour assid|uous due plea|sure I mix,
And in one | day atone | for the bus|iness of six,
In a lit|tle Dutch chaise | on a Sat|urday night,
On my left | hand my Hor|ace, a nymph | on my right.
(Observe here in "assidous" and "busness" the liberty of combining adjacent vowels (-uous) and following familiar pronunciation (bizness) which this light verse especially authorises.
XXX. "Pindarics" (Seventeenth Century)
Dryden (complete stanza from "Anne Killigrew" ode):