§ 60. In other poems the four-beat long lines used in the main part of the stanza are followed by shorter lines forming the cauda, which in part are of a variable rhythmic cadence either of three beats (or three measures) or of two beats, as e.g. in the well-known poem in Percy’s Reliques, ii, p. 1.[113] The first stanza may be quoted here:
Sitteþ alle stílle | and hérkneþ to mé:
Þe kýng of Alemáigne, | bi mi léauté,
Þrítti þousent pound | áskede hé
Forte máke þe pées | in þé countré,
Ant só he dùde móre.
Ríchard,
þah þou be éuer tríchard,
Trícchen shàlt þou néuer mòre.
In the following stanzas of this poem the four-beat rhythm, although rarely marked by regular alliteration, is (in the main part or ‘frons’) still more distinctly recognizable, in spite of several rhythmically incorrect lines.