ðát is stróng and stédefast ís,
and léneð hím trostlíke ðerbí,
ðánne he ís of wálke werí.
In many passages in the poem one or other of these different types of verse occurs unmixed with others. Thus we have short couplets in the section 444–5; in ll. 1–39 alliterative rhymeless verse, occasionally of marked archaic construction, concluding with a hemistich (39) which rhymes with the preceding hemistich so as to form a transition to the following section (ll. 40–52), which again consists of four-foot and Septenary verses. These are followed by a section (ll. 53–87) in which four-foot and three-foot lines (that is to say, Alexandrines) rhyming in couplets are blended; and this is succeeded by a further section (ll. 88–119) mostly consisting of Septenaries resolved by the rhyme into short lines. (Cf. Metrik, i, §§ 79–84.)
Hence we may say that the poet, in accordance with his Latin model (likewise composed in various metres), has purposely made use of these different metrical forms, and that the assertion made by Trautmann and others,[147] that the Septenary of the Ormulum and the Moral Ode, which is contemporary with Layamon, represents the final result of the development of Layamon’s verse (the freer alliterative long line), must be erroneous.
§ 143. In On god Ureison of ure Lefdi, on the other hand, the alliterative long lines play only an insignificant part, a part which is confined to an occasional use of a two-beat rhythm in the hemistichs and the frequent introduction of alliteration. Septenaries and Alexandrines here interchange ad libitum.
The following short passage (ll. 23–34) will suffice to illustrate these combinations of metres:
Nís no wúmmen ibóren | þét þe béo ilíche,
Ne nón þer nís þin éfning | wiðínne héoueríche.
Héih is þi kínestól | onúppe chérubíne,