By grene wode to seche play,
Mid herte y þohte al on a may,
Suetest of alle þinge;
Lyþe, and ich ou telle may
Al of þat suete þinge.
This stanza occurs frequently in the Towneley Mysteries, pp. 120–34, 254–69, &c. In Modern English, however, we find it very seldom; as an example (iambic-anapaestic verses of four and three measures) we may refer to Campbell’s Stanzas on the battle of Navarino (p. 176).
More frequent in Modern English, on the other hand, is a variety of this stanza with two-foot tail-verses on the scheme a a a4 b2 a4 b2; it is especially common in Ramsay and Fergusson, and occurs in several poems of Burns, e.g. in his Scotch Drink (p. 6):
Let other Poets raise a fracas
’Bout vines, an’ wines, an’ drunken Bacchus,
An’ crabbit names an’ stories wrack us,