What? Ælla dead? and Bertha dying too?
So fall the fairest flowrets of the plain.
Who can unfold the works that heaven can do,
Or who untwist the roll of fate in twain?
Ælla, thy glory was thy only gain;
For that, thy pleasure and thy joy was lost.
Thy countrymen shall rear thee on the plain
A pile of stones, as any grave can boast.
Further, a just reward to thee to be,
In heaven thou sing of God, on earth we'll sing of thee.
(Chatterton: Ælla, st. 147. 1768.)
This is the ten-line "Chatterton stanza," a variant of the Spenserian stanza, devised by Chatterton, which he claimed ante-dated Spenser by one or two centuries. His claim for it was of course purely fictitious.
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Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
(Oliver Wendell Holmes: The Chambered Nautilus. 1858.)
See also the notable use of the alexandrine in Shelley's Skylark, p. 34, above.
ababababbcbc
The dubbement dere of doun and dalez,
Of wod and water and wlonke playnez,
Bylde in me blys, abated my balez,
Fordidde my stresse, dystryed my paynez.
Doun after a strem that dryghly halez,
I bowed in blys, bred-ful my braynez;
The fyrre I folghed those floty valez,
The more strenghthe of joye myn herte straynez,
As fortune fares theras ho fraynez,
Whether solace ho sende other ellez sore,
The wygh, to wham her wylle ho waynez,
Hyttez to have ay more and more.