Glorious Virgyne, of alle floures flour,
To thee I flee, confounded in errour!
Help, and releve, thou mighty debonaire,
Have mercy of my perilous langour!
Venquysshed m’ hath my cruel adversaire.
Chaucer uses the same stanza in some other minor poems, and also in The Monkes Tale; besides this we find it often in Lydgate, Dunbar, Kennedy; more rarely in Modern English poetry; e.g. in Spenser’s Shepheard’s Cal., Ecl. XI, S. Daniel’s Cleopatra, &c.
Now and then some other eight-lined stanzas occur, e.g. one with the formula a b a b b c c bin Chaucer’s Complaynt of Venus, and in the Flyting by Dunbar and Kennedy. The scheme a a b b c d c d is used in a love-song (Rel. Ant. i. 70–4). In the Modern English period we have stanzas on the schemes a ~ b a ~ b c c d ~ d ~4 (in Sidney, Psalm XLIII), a b a b c c c b4 (Scott, Helvellyn, p. 472), a ~ b a ~ b c ~ c ~ d ~ d ~2 (Moore); cf. Metrik, ii, §§ 369–71.
There are also eight-lined stanzas formed by combination with tail-rhyme stanzas, as a a b a a b c c4, a a b c c d d b4, but they are not frequent; a stanza corresponding to the formula a a b a a b c c4 we have in Spenser, Epigram III (p. 586); and the variety a a b c c d d b4 (the cauda being enclosed by the pedes) occurs in Moore.
The same peculiarity we find in stanzas formed on the scheme A A b c b c A A4 (Moore), or a a b c b c d d4 (Wordsworth, ii. 267); cf. Metrik, ii, §§ 372, 373
§ 270. Stanzas of a still larger compass are of rare occurrence in Middle English poetry. A nine-lined stanza corresponding to the formula a a b a a b b c c5 we have in Chaucer’s Complaynt of Mars; it seems to be formed from the rhyme royal stanza, by adding one verse to each pes; but it might also be looked upon as a combination with the tail-rhyme stanza. Another stanza of this kind, with the formula a a b a a b b a b5, is used in Chaucer’s Complaynt of Faire Anelyda and in Dunbar’s Goldin Targe.