And may the birth of her we love
Be thus with joy remember’d ever!
Now and then certain modifications of this form of stanza are met with, especially stanzas the four-lined refrain of which forms not only the end, but also the beginning, of the stanza (but as a rule only in the first stanza, the others having the refrain only at the end); e.g. A B A B c d c d A B A B3 (st. 1), d e d e f g f g A B A B3. (st. 2), h i h i k l k l A B A B3 (st. 3), in Moore, Drink to her.
In other poems Moore uses this type of stanza with lines of four stresses, as in Drink of this cup, and with lines of two stresses, as in When the Balaika. For some rarely occurring stanzas of this kind see Metrik, ii, §§ 385, 386.
A stanza of thirteen lines corresponding to the formula a b a b b c b c d e e e d4 occurs in the Middle English poem The Eleven Pains of Hell (E. E. T. S., 49, p. 210). Another one on the scheme a ~ a ~ B c ~ c ~ B d ~ d ~ d ~ b e ~ e ~ B3 we have in Moore, Go where glory waits thee.
As to stanzas of fifteen and eighteen lines see Metrik, ii, § 387.
II. Anisometrical stanzas.
§ 273. As mentioned before (§ 267) the anisometrical stanzas of the tripartite class, being older, might have been dealt with before the isometrical stanzas. This chronological order of treatment, however, would have been somewhat inconvenient in practice, as it would have involved the necessity of discussing many of the more complicated stanzas before the shorter and simpler ones, most of which do not occur in Middle English, but in Modern poetry only. Moreover, the absence of certain simple and short forms of stanza constructed in accordance with the principles which were generally adopted in the Middle English period is a purely accidental circumstance, which is liable at any moment to be altered by the discovery of new texts.
In the following paragraphs, therefore, the stanzas belonging to this chapter are discussed according to their arrangement of rhymes and to the length of the lines of which they are composed.
We begin with certain stanzas of six lines, the first part (the frons or ‘upsong’) of which is isometrical, the arrangement of rhymes being parallel.