Lest thou should’st eat the flies;
Nor will I roast thee with a damn’d delight
Thy strange instinctive fortitude to see,
For there is One who might
One day roast me.
A structure analogous to that of the two last-quoted specimens is exhibited in many stanzas occurring in earlier Modern English poetry, as in Cowley, Herbert, Browne, Carew (a5 b4 a5 b4 c4 c5 d4 d5, a5 b2 a5 b2 c4 c3 d5 d2, a3 b2 a3 b2 c c4 d d5, a4 b2 a4 b2 c3 c2 d d3); other forms, corresponding only in the upsong or downsong to the Middle English stanza quoted above, are a ~4 b2 a ~3 b2 c ~4 d3 c ~4 d3, a4 b ~3 a4 b ~3 b ~2 b ~3 c4 b ~3, a4 b3 a4 b3 c d3 c4 d3, &c., used by Burns, Moore, and Mrs. Hemans. For examples see Metrik, ii, §§ 417, 418.
§ 278. The next group consists of stanzas, one main part of which consists of a half or of a whole tail-rhyme stanza. The first of these two forms is used e.g. by Burns in the song She’s Fair and Fause (p. 204), where the stanza consists of four- and three-foot verses on the model a4 b3 a4 b3 c c c4 d3:
She’s fair and fause that causes my smart,
I lo’ed her meikle and lang: