Ant wlyteþ on huere wynter wele,
Þat al þe wode ryngeþ.
We are not in a position to quote a Modern English specimen of this stanza, but it was very popular in Middle English poetry, both in lyrics and in legends or romances, and in later dramatic poetry.[189].
§ 242. As to the further development of the tail-rhyme stanza, the enlarged forms must first be mentioned. They are produced by adding a third line to the principal lines of each half-stanza; the result being an eight-lined stanza of the formula a a a4 b3 c c c4 b3. Stanzas of this form occur in Early Middle English lyrics, e.g. in Wright’s Spec. of Lyr. Poetry, p. 51 (with a refrain-stanza) and Polit. Songs, p. 187 (four-stressed main verses and two-stressed tail-verses, the latter having occasionally the appearance of being in three-beat rhythm).
A later example is found in Dunbar’s poem Off the Fenȝeit Freir of Tungland; in the Miracle Plays the form was also in favour. Isometrical stanzas of this kind have been mentioned above (§§ [238], [239]).
In Modern English poetry this stanza is extensively used. We find it in Drayton, Nymphidia (Poets, iii. 177), with feminine tail-verses:
Old Chaucer doth of Topas tell,
Mad Rablais of Pantagruel,
A later third of Dowsabel,
With such poor trifles playing: