Rhyming couplets of this kind of verse, when broken up into short lines, give rise to stanzas with the formulas a~b c~b4, d~e~f~e~4, or, if inserted rhymes are used, we have the form a~b a~b4 (alternating masculine and feminine endings), or a~b~a~b~4 (if there are feminine endings only). In both these cases the eight-foot rhythm is distinctly preserved to the ear. But this is no longer the case in another trochaic metre of eight feet, where the theses of both the fourth and the eighth foot are wanting, as may be noticed in Swinburne, A Midsummer Holiday, p. 132:
Scárce two húndred yéars are góne, | ánd the wórld is pást awáy
Ás a nóise of bráwling wínd, | ás a flásh of bréaking fóam,
Thát behéld the sínger bórn | whó raised úp the déad of Róme;
Ánd a míghtier nów than hé | bíds him tóo rise úp to-dáy;
still less when such lines are broken up by inserted rhyme in stanzas of the form a b a b4. In cases, too, where the eight-foot trochaic verse is broken up by leonine rhyme, the rhythm has a decided four-foot cadence on account of the rapid recurrence of the rhyme.
§ 182. The seven-foot trochaic line is theoretically either a brachycatalectic tetrameter with a feminine or a hypercatalectic trimeter with a masculine ending. An example of the first kind we had on p. [128]. A more correct specimen is the following line from the same poem:
Hásten, Lórd, who árt my Hélper; | lét thine áid be spéedy.
The verses quoted on p. [128] are incorrect in so far as the caesura occurs at an unusual place, viz. in the middle of the fourth foot, instead of after it, as in the example just quoted.
They show, however, the origin of a pretty frequently occurring anisorhythmical stanza, which is derived from this metre by means of the use of inserted rhyme; lines 1 and 3 having a trochaic, lines 2 and 4, on the other hand, an iambic rhythm; cf. e.g. the following stanza from a poem by Suckling (Poets, iii. 741):