And báre hym ón hys bákke awáy,
Crýinge ‘Allás and wélawáy!’
The whíche Anchíses ín hys hónde
Báre the góddes óf the lónde,
Thílke thát unbrénde wére.
And Í saugh néxt in ál hys fére, &c.
§ 130. Four-foot verses often occur also in Middle English in connexion with other metrical forms, especially with three-foot verses, e.g. in the Septenary, which is resolved by the rhyme into two short lines, and in the tail-rhyme stanza, or rime couée (cf. §§ [78], [79]).
In these combinations the structure of the metre remains essentially the same, only there are in many poems more frequent instances of suppression of the anacrusis, so that the metre assumes a variable cadence, partly trochaic, partly iambic. At the end of the Middle English period the four-foot verse was, along with other metrical forms, employed by preference in the earlier dramatic productions, and was skilfully used by Heywood, among others, in his interlude, The Four P.’s.[144].
§ 131. In he Modern English period this metre has also found great favour, and we may, as in the case of other metres, distinguish between a strict and a freer variety of it. The strict form was, and is, mostly represented in lyric poetry, in verses rhyming in couplets or in cross rhyme. The rhythm is generally in this case (since the separation between iambic and trochaic verse-forms became definitely established) strictly iambic, generally with monosyllabic rhymes.
A greater interest attaches to the freer variety of the metre, which is to be regarded as a direct continuation of the Middle English four-foot verse, inasmuch as it was practised by the poets of the first Modern English period in imitation of earlier models, and has been further cultivated by their successors down to the most recent times. The characteristic feature in this treatment of the four-foot verse is the frequent suppression of the anacrusis, by which it comes to resemble the four-beat verse, along with which it is often used. But whilst the latter generally has an iambic-anapaestic or trochaic-dactylic structure, and is constantly divided by the caesura into two halves, the Modern English four-foot verse of the freer type has, as a rule, an alternately iambic and trochaic rhythm, with a rare occurrence of caesuras. Shakespeare and other dramatists often employ this metre for lyrical passages in their dramas. Of longer poems in the earlier period Milton’s L’Allegro and Il Penseroso are conspicuous examples.