He that made bothe sunne and mone
In heuene and erthe for to schyne,
Bringe vs to heuene, with him to wone,
And schylde vs from helle pyne!
Stanzas like this, which are frequent in Low Latin, Provençal, and Old French poetry, are very common in Middle and Modern English poetry. Examples may be found in Ritson’s Ancient Songs, i, p. 40, Surrey, pp. 37, 56, &c., Burns, p.97, &c., M. Arnold, Saint Brandan, p. 165, &c. Masculine and feminine rhymes do not alternate very often (cf. Percy’s Reliques, I. iii. 13). More frequently we find stanzas with refrain verses, e.g. Wyatt, p. 70.
Stanzas of this kind consisting of four- or three-foot iambic, trochaic, iambic-anapaestic, trochaic-dactylic lines, of three-foot iambic lines, or of two-foot dactylic or other lines are also very common, e.g. in M. Arnold’s A Modern Sappho (with alternating masculine and feminine verse-endings), Pis Aller (p. 230), Requiescat (p. 21).
Another stanza of great importance is what is called the elegiac stanza, which consists of four five-foot verses with crossed rhymes. In Middle English literature it was only used as a part of the Rhyme-Royal and of the eight-lined stanza. In Modern English, however, it has been used from the beginning more frequently; it occurs already in Wyatt (p. 58):
Heaven and earth and all that hear me plain
Do well perceive what care doth make me cry
Save you alone, to whom I cry in vain;