when hit cómeþ in my þóht,
óf this wórldes ióie, hóu hit geþ ál to nóht.
A similar structure (a a a4 b3 b5) is shown in a stanza of a poem quoted by Ritson, Ancient Songs, i. 129; the poem belongs to the fifteenth century.
Still more numerous are these stanzas in Modern English; e.g. the form a a a3 b b5 occurs in Herbert, Sinne (p. 58), a a a3 b4 b3 in Shelley (iii. 244), a a a b4 b5 in Suckling (Poets, iii. 734); a still more irregular structure (a4 a5 b b4 b5) in Cowley, All for love (Poets, v. 263):
’Tis well, ’tis well with them, say I.
Whose short liv’d passions with themselves can die;
For none can be unhappy who,
’Midst all his ills, a time does know
(Though ne’er so long) when he shall not be so.
Here again we meet with the stanzas mentioned above, which are partially characterized by enclosing rhymes, e.g. corresponding to the formula a b b a, as in M. Arnold, On the Rhine (p. 223), or on the scheme a a b b4 a5, as in Byron, Oh! snatch’d away, &c. (p. 123):