Certain deviations from the ordinary iambic rhythm which partly disturb the agreement of the number of accented and unaccented syllables in a line are more frequent in Middle English than in Modern English poetry. One of these licences is the suppression of the anacrusis or the absence of the first unaccented syllable of the line, or of the second rhythmical section, e.g.
Þán sche séyd: ȝe trówe on hím | þát is lórd of swíche pousté.
Horstmann’s Altengl. Legend. N. F., p. 250, ll. 333–4.
Gíf we léornið gódes láre,
Þénne ofþúncheþ hít him sáre. Pater Noster, 15–16.
Únnet líf ic hábbe iléd, | and ȝíet, me þíncð, ic léde.
Moral Ode, l. 5.
Twénty bóokes, | clád in blák and réde. Chaucer, Prol. 294.[129]
Sóme, that wátched | wíth the múrd’rer’s knífe. Surrey, p. 59.
Góod my Lórd, | give mé thy fávour stíll.