A History of English Versification

by J. Schipper

In the few Modern English stanzas of this length we generally find also a part of a tail-rhyme stanza, as e.g. in the cauda of a stanza constructed on the formula a b ~ a b ~ c d ~ c d ~₄ E F ~₄ g g₂ F ~₄ (Moore, Lesbia hath, &c.); or in a stanza like a ~ b a ~ b₄ c c₂ b₄ d d₂ e f e f₄, deficient in one four-stressed tail-verse as in Moore, The Prince’s Day:

Tho’ dark are our sorrows to-day we’ll forget them,

And smile through our tears, like a sunbeam in showers;

There never were hearts, if our rulers would let them,

More form’d to be grateful and blest than ours.

But just when the chain

Has ceas’d to pain,

And hope has enwreath’d it round with flowers,

There comes a new link

Our spirits to sink—