The Atlantic billows roared,
When such a destined wretch as I,
Washed headlong from on board,
Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,
His floating home for ever left.
There are many varieties of this form of stanza, as e.g. a4 b3 a4 b3 c c5, a4 b3 a4 b3 c4 c5, a3 b2 a3 b2 c4 c5, a4 b2 a4 b2 c c4, a5 b4 a5 b4 c c5; a3 b4 a3 b4 c c4, a2 b4 a2 b4 c c5. All these different schemes were chiefly used by the earlier Modern English poets, as Browne, Carew, Cowley, Waller, and Herbert. (See Metrik, ii, § 397).
There are some other stanzas of allied structure which may be regarded as extensions of the Poulter’s Measure by the addition of a second Alexandrine or Septenary verse, their formulas being a b c b3 d4 d3 or a b3 c4 b3 d4 d3. For examples see Metrik, ii, § 398.
§ 275. Stanzas of seven lines are very common, and have many diverse forms. In the first place may be mentioned those which have parallel arrangement of rhymes, and in which the frons is isometrical. Some of these forms, used chiefly by the earlier poets, as Cowley, Sheffield, and others, have the scheme a a b b c4 c2 c5 or a a b b c4 c a5. Another variety, with alternate four-and two-foot iambic-anapaestic lines according to the formula a a b b4 r r2 R4, occurs in Moore, The Legend of Puck the Fairy:
Would’st know what tricks, by the pale moonlight,
Are play’d by me, the merry little Sprite,