More frequently than this correct seven-foot verse, with either a feminine or masculine ending, we find the incorrect type, consisting of a catalectic and a brachycatalectic dimeter, according to the model of the well-known Low Latin verse:
Mihi est propositum | in taberna mori,
which is often confounded with the former (cf. § [135]). The following first stanza of a poem by Suckling (Poets, iii. 471) is written in exact imitation of this metre:
Óut upón it, Í have lóved | thrée whole dáys tógether;
Ánd am líke to lóve three móre, | íf it próve fair wéather.
Although only the long lines rhyme, the stanza is commonly printed in short lines (a4 b3 ~ c4 b3 ~). Still more frequently we find short-lined stanzas of the kind (a4 b3 ~ a4 b3 ~) as well as the other sub-species with masculine rhymes only: a4 b3 a4 b3.
§ 183. The six-foot trochaic line occurs chiefly in Modern English, and appears both in acatalectic (feminine) and catalectic (masculine) form; e.g. in Swinburne The Last Oracle (Poems and Ballads, ii. 1):
Dáy by dáy thy shádow | shínes in héaven behólden,
Éven the sún, the shíning | shádow óf thy fáce:
Kíng, the wáys of héaven | befóre thy féet grow gólden;