And have.
God grante him graces gode,
And fro all sins us save.
A similar form of stanza (A B A B A B A B3 c1 B C3) is used in the Romance of Sir Tristrem; that of the Scottish poem Christ’s Kirk on the Green, however, is formed on the model A4 B3 A4 B3 A4 B3 b1 B4
§ 265. Still more common than stanzas of this kind composed of even-beat verses, are those of four-stressed rhyming verses with or without alliteration.
Under this head comes a poem in Wright’s Polit. Songs, p. 69 (cf. § [60]), on the scheme A A A A4 B3 c1 C3 B4, or rather A A A A4 b2 c1 c2 B4, the bob-verse being thus inserted in the cauda. The common form comes out more clearly in another poem, ibid., p. 212 (st. 1, quoted pp. 100–1), corresponding to A A A A4 b1 c c2 b2, where A A A A4 are verses of four stresses, b a one-stressed bob-verse or the half-verse of a long line, c c2 b2 half-verses of two stresses. The Tournament of Tottenham (Ritson’s Anc. Songs, i. 85–9) is written in a similar form of stanza with the formula A A A A4 b c c c b2; the cauda consisting of five verses with two stresses only.
This form of stanza is further developed by connecting the halves of the long lines with each other by the insertion of rhymes in the same way as in the stanzas of isometrical verses. An example may be seen in Wright’s Polit. Songs, p. 153, the scheme being A A A A4 b b1 b2 or A A A A4 b1 b2 b4 (or, with the longer lines broken up, A B A B A B A B2 c c1 c2, or A B A B A B A B2 c1 c2 C4, &c.).
Similar stanzas, especially those on the model A A A A4 b1 c c c2 b2 (A B A B A B A B2 c1 d d d2 c2) were much used in the mystery plays, as e.g. in the Towneley Mysteries (pp. 20–34), even when in the dialogue the single lines are divided between different speakers (cf. Metrik, i, pp. 390–1).
The four-stressed long lines sometimes alternate with Alexandrine and Septenary verses. In these plays stanzas of an eight-lined frons consisting of long verses, rhyming crosswise and corresponding to A B A B A B A B4 c1 d d d2 c2 are also common: