Where the quiet-colored end of evening smiles
Miles and miles
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half-asleep
Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop
As they crop.
(Browning: Love among the Ruins. 1855.)
Compare with this (although it is not divided into stanzas) Herrick's Thanksgiving to God:
Lord, thou hast given me a cell
Wherein to dwell;
A little house, whose humble roof
Is weatherproof;
Under the spars of which I lie
Both soft and dry.
When God at first made Man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by,
Let us (said He) pour on him all we can:
Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.
(George Herbert: The Gifts of God. 1631.)
The following specimens illustrate various forms of stanzas distinguished by arrangement of rime, without reference to the length of lines:
abccb
In vain, through every changeful year
Did Nature lead him as before;
A primrose by a river's brim
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more.
(Wordsworth: Peter Bell. 1798.)