There is no line here corresponding to l. 5 of the preceding poem. Otherwise, however, the cauda of this poem is of a similar structure to that of the preceding one, at least in this and possibly in the following stanzas, whereas the last line of the first stanza has a two-beat rhythm, and in the others the last lines probably are to be scanned with three beats. The second line of the cauda of the first stanza of this poem belongs to type C. Another poem (Wright’s Polit. Songs, p. 155; Böddeker, P.L. no. iv) shows a very artificial form of stanza, either corresponding to the formula a a4 b2 c c4 b2 d d4 b2 e e4 b2 f f g g g f2 (if we look upon the verses as four-beat and two-beat lines, which the poet probably intended), or corresponding to the formula a a4 b3 c c4 b3 d d4 b3 e e4 b3 f f g g g f2 (if we look upon the frons as consisting of ordinary tail-rhyme-stanza lines of four and three even-beat measures).
The four- and two-beat cadence of the verses comes out still more clearly in the stanzas of another poem (Wright’s Pol. Songs, p. 187; Ritson, Anc. Songs, i. 51; Böddeker, P.L. no. v), the rhymes of which follow the scheme a a a4 b2 c c c4 b2 (extended tail-rhyme-stanzas). Some of its long lines, it is true, admit of being read as even-beat verses of three measures, e.g. and béo huere chéuentéyn 20, and móni anóþer swéyn 24, but the true scansion in all probability is and béo huere chéuenteȳ̀n (or chèuentéyn): ant móni anòþer swéyn, in conformity with the scansion of the following lines to cóme to parís: þourh þe flóur de lís 52–6, or wiþ éorl and wiþ knýht: with húem forte fýht 124–8.
As a first step to the epic forms of stanza to be considered in the next paragraph a poem of the early fourteenth century (Wright’s Pol. Songs, p. 212; Ritson, Anc. Songs, p. 28; Böddeker, P.L. no. vi) may be quoted:
Lýstne, Lórdinges, | a newe sóng ichulle bigýnne
Of þe tráytours of Scótland, | þat táke beþ wyþ gýnne.
Món þat loveþ fálsnesse, | and nule néuer blýnne,
Sóre may him dréde | þe lýf þat he is ýnne,
Ich vnderstónde:
Sélde wes he glád,
Þat néuer nes asád