I see the waves upon the shore,
Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:
I sit upon the sands alone,
The lightning of the noon-tide ocean
Is flashing round me, and a tone
Arises from its measured motion,
How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.
For other examples see Metrik, ii, §§ 499–503..
§ 300. Greater variety is found in the second group; they have an extent of four up to sixteen lines and mostly occur in poets of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries (Donne, Ben Jonson, Cowley, Rowe, Akenside, &c.), rarely in the nineteenth century. Stanzas of four lines are, a5 a b4 b6 (Poets, v. 236), a a4 b5 b6 (ib. xi. 1207); of five lines, a5 a b3 b4 a6 (ib. v. 281), a b a5 b4 b6 (ib. ix. 312), &c.; of six lines, a4 b5 a4 b c5 c6 (ib. xi. 130), a4 b3 a4 b3 c5 c6 (ib. x. 722), a a4 b3 c c4 b6 (ib. xi. 1070; tail-rhyme stanza), a b5 a4 b c5 c6 (Tennyson, The Third of February); of seven lines, a3 b5 b3 a4 c c3 c6 (Poets, v. 413), a b a b5 b3 c5 c6 (Mrs. Hemans, Easter Day, vii. 165, with rhymes in the rhyme royal order; of eight lines, a a3 b5 c c3 b5 d4 d6 (Milton, Hymn on the Nativity, ii. 400; tail-rhyme + d4 d6), a5 b2 a b5 c3 d5 c3 d7 (Poets, iv. 36), a5 a4 b b5 c d c4 d6 (ib. v. 432), a b4 b c a5 d d4 c6 (ib. ix. 794), a b a b c5 c3 d5 d6, and a b5 a4 b3 c5 d4 d3 c6 (Wordsworth, Artegal and Elidure, vi. 47, and ’Tis said that some have died for love, ii. 184, beginning with the second stanza).
The following stanza from the last-mentioned poem may serve as a specimen: