The nymph that’s fated to o’ercome,
Now triumphs at the wells.
Her shape, and air, and eyes,
Her face, the gay, the grave, the wise,
The beau, in spite of box and dice,
Acknowledge, all excels.
Stanzas of cognate form are quoted in Metrik, ii, §§ 283–5, constructed according to the schemes: a a2 a4 b3 c c2 c4 b3, a3 b b4 c ~2 a3 d d4 c ~2 (with a varying first rhyme in the chief verses), a a b b4 c2 d d e e4 c2 (ten lines, with a new rhyming couplet in the half-stanza), a a b b c3 C2 a a b b c3 C2 (an analogous twelve-lined stanza, extended by refrain in each half-stanza), a b a b5 c3 d e d e5 c3 (crossed rhymes in the principal verses).
Two uncommon variations that do not, strictly speaking, belong to the isocolic stanzas, correspond to the formulas a b b5 c2 c d d5 a2, a b a4 c ~2 b a b4 c ~2
§ 244. Another step in the development of the tail-rhyme stanza consisted in making the principal verses of the half-stanza shorter than the tail-verse. Models for this form existed in Low Latin, Provençal, and Old French poetry (cf. Metrik, i, § 366). In Middle English, however, there are not many stanzas of this form. We have an example in Dunbar’s poem Of the Ladyis Solistaris at Court (a a2 b3 c c2 b3 d d2 e3 f f2 e3):
Thir Ladyis fair,