A History of English Versification

by J. Schipper

A year ago on this very day.

For specimens of other forms see Metrik, ii, § 318

§ 256. The simplest kind of isometrical stanzas of this group is that in which the four-lined one-rhymed stanza is extended by the addition of a couplet with a new rhyme, so that it forms a six-lined stanza. A Latin stanza of this kind consisting of Septenary verses is given in Wright’s Pol. Poems, i. 253, and a Middle English imitation of it, ib. p. 268, in the poem On the Minorite Friars. The same stanza composed of four-stressed verses is used by Minot in his poem Of the batayl of Banocburn (ib. i. 61):

Skottes out of Berwik and of Abirdene,

At the Bannok burn war ȝe to kene;

Thare slogh ȝe many sakles, als it was sene;

And now has king Edward wroken it, I wene.

It es wrokin, I wene, wele wurth the while;

War ȝit with the Skottes, for thai er ful of gile.