Who wing through air from the camp to the court,
From king to clown, and of all make sport;
Singing, I am the Sprite
Of the merry midnight,
Who laugh at weak mortals, and love the moonlight.
Stanzas with an anisometrical first part, e.g. on the model a4 a5 b4 b5 c c4 c5in Donne, Love’s Exchange (Poets, iv. 30), are of rare occurrence.
Numerous stanzas of this kind have in part crossed rhymes; we find, e. g., stanzas with the same order of rhymes as in the rhyme royal, on the model a b a b b c3 c5 as in S. Daniel, A Description of Beauty:
O Beauty (beams, nay, flame
Of that great lamp of light),
That shines a while with fame,