Péase, man, péase!
I réde, we séase.
So farly fáyre as it lókys,
And her bécke so comely crókys,
Her naylys shárpe as tenter hókys!
I haue not képt her yet thre wókys
And howe stýll she dothe sýt! &c., &c.
In other poems Skelton uses short lines of two beats, but rhyming in a varied order under the influence, it would seem, of the strophic system of the virelay, which rhymes in the order a a a b b b b c c c c d. But the succession of rhymes is more irregular in the Skeltonic metre, as e. g. in the passage:
What cán it auáyle