The same form of stanza, composed of two-, three-, or four-foot verses also occurs almost exclusively in the Early Modern English period (cf. ib., § 363).
Some varieties of this stanza, mostly formed of three-, four-, and five-foot verses, correspond to the schemes a b a b c c b4 (e.g. in Akenside, Book I, Ode iii), a b a b c b c5 (Spenser, Daphnaïda, p. 542), a b a b c b c2 (R. Browning, vi. 41). Other stanzas of seven lines are a b a b c c a4, a a b b c c a4, a a b b a c c4, a b a b C d C3, a a b b c c c4, a b a b c c c4, a b a b c c c5, a b a c c d d5 (for specimens see Metrik, ii, §§ 365, 366).
§ 269. Eight-lined isometrical stanzas are also frequently used in the Middle and Modern English period, though not so often as those of six and seven lines.
The scheme a b a b b a b a, formed from the simple equal-membered stanza of eight lines a b a b a b a b, it would seem, by inversion of the last two couplets, is rare in Middle English. We find it in the Digby Plays, consisting of four-foot verses. In Modern English, too, it is not very common; we have an example in Wyatt, e.g. pp. 118, 135, and another in the same poet, formed of five-foot verses (a b a b b a b a5), p. 135.
Much more in favour in the Middle as well as in the Modern English period is the typical form of the eight-lined stanza, corresponding to the scheme a b a b b c b c. It is formed from the preceding stanza by the introduction of a new rhyme in the sixth and eighth verses, and it had its model likewise in a popular ballade-stanza of Old French lyrical poetry.
In Middle English poetry this stanza is very common, consisting either of four-stressed verses (e.g. in The Lyfe of Joseph of Arimathia, E. E. T. S., vol. 44, and On the death of the Duke of Suffolk, Wright’s Polit. Poems, ii. 232) or of four-foot or five-foot verses. As an example of the form consisting of four-foot verses we may quote a stanza from Wright’s Polit. Songs, p. 246:
Alle þat beoþ of huerte trewe,
A stounde herkneþ to my song
Of duel, þat deþ haþ diht us newe
Þat makeþ me syke ant sorewe among!