It was changed into a stanza of seven lines on the scheme a b a b c c5 c6 by Donne, The Good Morrow (Poets, iv. 24) by the addition of a seventh line rhyming with the two preceding lines.
Much more artistic taste is shown by the transformation of the seven-lined rhyme royal stanza a b a b b c c5 (cf. § [268]) into a quasi-Spenserian stanza a b a b b c5 c6 in Milton’s On the Death of a Fair Infant.
By the addition of a new line rhyming with the last couplet this form was developed into the eight-lined stanza a b a b b c c5 c6 employed in Giles Fletcher’s Christ’s Victory and Triumph.
Omitting some rarer forms (cf. Metrik, ii, § 495) we may mention that Phineas Fletcher transformed the ottava rima a b a b a b c c5 into a quasi-Spenserian stanza of the form a b a b a b c5 c6, and that he also extended the same stanza to one of nine lines (a b a b a b c c5 c6) by adding one verse more. Other nine-line quasi-Spenserian stanzas occurring occasionally in modern poets, e.g. Mrs. Hemans, Shelley, and Wordsworth, correspond to a b a a b b c c5 c6, a b a b c d c d5 d6, a b a b c c b d5 d6, a a b b c c d d5 d6. (For specimens see Metrik, ii, § 496.) A stanza of ten lines on the scheme a b a b c d c d e5 e6 was invented by Prior for his Ode to the Queen (Poets, vii. 440); but it is not, as he thought, an improved, but only a simplified form of the old Spenserian scheme:
When great Augustus govern’d ancient Rome,
And sent his conquering bands to foreign wars;
Abroad when dreaded, and belov’d at home,
He saw his fame increasing with his years;
Horace, great bard! (so fate ordain’d) arose,
And, bold as were his countrymen in fight,