With masculine endings such couplets are frequent, e.g. Il Penseroso, 67–8:
Tó behóld the wándering móon,
Ríding néar the híghest nóon;
further, ll. 75–6, 81–2, 141–2, &c.
As a rule, pure iambic lines rhyme together, or an iambic with a line that has a trochaic cadence, as, for instance, in the above specimen, L’Allegro, 13–14 and 15–16.
Besides initial truncation there also occur here the other metrical licences observed in iambic rhythm.
§ 132. Many sections of the narrative poems of Coleridge, Scott, and Byron, e.g. the latter’s Siege of Corinth, are written in this form, with which, in especially animated passages, four-beat verses often alternate. Cf., for instance, the following passage, xvi, from the last-named poem:
Stíll by the shóre Alp mútely músed,
And wóo’d the fréshness níght diffúsed.
There shrínks no ébb in that tídeless séa,