A stanza of nine lines is found in Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott (p. 28); it is on the scheme a a a a b c c c4 b; one of ten lines in his Greeting to the Duchess of Edinburgh (p. 261) on the model a b b a5 C2 d e e d5 C3 (cf. Metrik, ii, § 349).
Other stanzas of this kind are related to the Septenary or the Poulter’s Measure, e.g. those on the schemes a4 b3 a b c d c4 d3, a b a4 b3 c d3 c4 d3, and a b2 a4 b2 c3 d2 c4 d2, examples of which, from Moore, are given in Metrik, ii, § 348.
Stanzas of eleven and twelve lines are rare. For examples see Metrik, ii, § 350.
§ 264. The bob-wheel stanzas. This important class of bipartite unequal-membered anisometrical stanzas was very much in vogue in the Middle English period. They consist (see § [222]) of a frons (longer verses of four stresses, or Septenary and Alexandrine verses) and a cauda, which is formed of shorter verses and is joined to the frons by one or several ‘bob-verses’, belonging generally to the first part or ‘upsong’ (in German Aufgesang).
Sometimes it is doubtful whether these stanzas belong to the bipartite or to the tripartite class, on account of the variety of rhymes in the frons. But as they mostly consist of two quite unequal parts, they certainly stand in a closer relationship to the bipartite stanzas.
A simple stanza of this kind on the scheme A A7 C1 B7 occurs in William of Shoreham (printed in short lines on the model A4 B3 C4 B3 d1 E4 D3):
Nou here we mote in this sermon of ordre maky saȝe,
Then was bytokned suithe wel wylom by the ealde lawe
To aginne,
Tho me made Godes hous and ministres therinne.