Of a nótable prínce, | that was cálled king Jóhn;
And he rúled Éngland | with máine and with míght,
For he díd great wróng, | and maintéin’d little ríght.
And I’le téll you a stóry, | a stóry so mérrye,
Concérning the Abbot | of Cánterbúrye;
How for his hóuse-kéeping, | and hígh renówne,
They rode póst for him | to faire Lóndon tówne.
This four-beat rhythm, which (as is proved by the definition King James VI gives of it) is the direct descendant of the old alliterative line, has continued in use in modern English poetry to the present day.
It occurs in the poem The recured Lover, by Sir Thomas Wyatt, one of the earliest Modern English poets, where it is intermixed sometimes with four-feet rhythms, as was the case also in several Early English poems. The general rhythm, however, is clearly of an iambic-anapaestic nature. Fifteen years after the death of Wyatt Thomas Tusser wrote part of his didactic poem A hundred good points of Husbandry in the same metre. In Tusser’s hands the metre is very regular, the first foot generally being an iambus and the following feet anapaests:
Whom fáncy persuádeth | amóng other cróps,