The so-called Legend-Cycle is also marked by a sort of alexandrine couplet. (See ten Brink's English Literature, Kennedy trans., vol. i. p. 274.)
O! think I, had I wings like to the simple dove,
This peril might I fly, and seek some place of rest
In wilder woods, where I might dwell far from these cares.
What speedy way of wing my plaints should they lay on,
To 'scape the stormy blast that threatened is to me?
Rein those unbridled tongues! break that conjured league!
For I decipher'd have amid our town the strife.
(Earl of Surrey: Psalm. LV. ab. 1540.)
This is a not very successful experiment in unrimed alexandrines. Others of Surrey's Psalms are in rimed "Poulter's Measure" (alexandrines alternating with septenary).
O, let me breathe a while, and hold thy heavy hand,
My grievous faults with Shame enough I understand.
Take ruth and pity on my plaint, or else I am forlorn;
Let not the world continue thus in laughing me to scorn.
Madam, if I be he, to whom you once were bent,
With whom to spend your time sometime you were content:
If any hope be left, if any recompense
Be able to recover this forepassed negligence,
O, help me now, poor wretch, in this most heavy plight,
And furnish me yet once again with Tediousness to fight.
(The Marriage of Wit and Science, V. ii., in Dodsley's Old English Plays, ed. Hazlitt, vol. ii. p. 386. ab. 1570.)
In this play the alexandrine is the dominant measure, though mingled with occasional septenaries still. (See Schipper, vol. i. p. 256.)
While favor fed my hope, delight with hope was brought,
Thought waited on delight, and speech did follow thought;
Then grew my tongue and pen records unto thy glory,
I thought all words were lost that were not spent of thee,
I thought each place was dark but where thy lights would be,
And all ears worse than deaf that heard not out thy story.
(Sidney: Astrophel and Stella, Fifth Song. [In stanzas aabccb.] ab. 1580.)