These lyric pieces, short and few,
Most worthy Sir, I send to you,
To read them be not weary:
They may become John Hewes his lyre,
Which oft at Powlsworth by the fire
Hath made us gravely merry.
This, the chief form of the tail-rhyme stanza, has been in use throughout the whole Modern English period. There has, however, never been any fixed rule as to the employment of feminine or masculine rhymes. Sometimes feminine tail-rhymes with masculine couplets are used (as in the example above), sometimes masculine rhymes only, while in other instances masculine and feminine rhymes are employed indiscriminately.
Iambic-anapaestic verses of four or three measures were also sometimes used in this form of stanza, as in Moore, Hero and Leander.
There are a great many varieties of this main form; the stanza may consist, for instance, of four- and two-foot iambic or trochaic lines, or of iambic lines of three and two, five and three, five and two measures, according to the schemes a a b c c4 b2, a a3 b2 c c3 b2, a a5 b3 c c5 b3, a a5 b2 c c5 b2, and a3 b b5 a3 c c5 (the tail-verses in front). For examples see Metrik, ii, § 279
§ 241. The next step in the development of this stanza was its enlargement to twelve lines (a a4 b3 c c4 b3 d d4 b3 e e4 b3) by doubling. This form occurs in Wright’s Spec. of Lyr. Poetry, p. 43: