The tripartite character of a strophe appears somewhat more distinctly in stanzas formed on the scheme a b a b b b, or a b a b b x (cf. Metrik, ii, §359).
The only stanzas, however, that are in the strictest sense to be regarded as tripartite are those in which the first and the last part are clearly distinguished by the arrangement of rhymes, as e.g. in the type a b a b c c. This stanza is very popular in Modern English poetry; in the Middle English period, however, we find it very rarely used, as e.g. in the Coventry Mysteries, p. 315.
In Modern English it occurs e.g. in Surrey, A Prayse of his Love (p. 31):
Give place, ye lovers, here before
That spend your boasts and brags in vain;
My Lady’s beauty passeth more
The best of yours, I dare well sayen,
Than doth the sun the candle light,
Or brightest day the darkest night.
This form of stanza is used with lines of the same metres by many other poets, e.g. by M. Arnold, pp. 195, 197, 256, 318. Similar stanzas of four-foot trochaic (cf. p. 285), or of four-stressed verses, and especially of five-foot verses, are very popular. They are found e.g. in Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis, M. Arnold’s Mycerinus (first part, p. 8), &c. (cf. Metrik, ii, §§ 360, 361).