(Ye Nutbrowne Maide. From Arnold's Chronicle, printed ab. 1502. In Flügel's Neuenglisches Lesebuch, vol. i. p. 167.)
Haill rois maist chois till clois thy fois greit micht,
Haill stone quhilk schone upon the throne of licht,
Vertew, quhais trew sweit dew ouirthrew al vice,
Was ay ilk day gar say the way of licht;
Amend, offend, and send our end ay richt.
Thow stant, ordant as sanct, of grant maist wise,
Till be supplie, and the hie gre of price.
Delite the tite me quite of site to dicht,
For I apply schortlie to thy devise.
(Gawain Douglas: A ballade in the commendation of honour and verteu; at the end of the Palace of Honor.)
Douglas, like his countryman Dunbar, was something of a metrical virtuoso, and his use of internal rime in this ballade is one of his most remarkable achievements. In the first stanza there are two internal rimes in each line, in the second three, and in the third (here quoted) four.
I cannot eat but little meat,
My stomach is not good,
But sure I think that I can drink
With him that wears a hood.
Though I go bare, take ye no care,
I nothing am a-cold,
I stuff my skin so full within
Of jolly good ale and old.
(Drinking Song in Gammer Gurton's Needle.)
The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow stream'd off free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.
(Coleridge: Rime of the Ancient Mariner.)
The splendor falls on castle walls,
And snowy summits old in story;
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
(Tennyson: Song in The Princess, iv.)