-en in abouten, aboven, binnen, biforen (foren), bisiden, uten, wiðouten.
VI. Prepositions.
Fro (Northumbrian fra) takes the place of the Southern fram (from), and til (unknown to Southern writers) occurs frequently for to.
THE METRE OF THE POEM.
The essence of the system of versification which the poet has adopted is, briefly, that every line shall have four accented syllables in it; the unaccented syllables being left in some measure, as it were, to take care of themselves.
The words which Coleridge prefixed to his poem of "Christabel" are by no means inapplicable here. He says, "I have only to add, that the metre of the 'Christabel' is not, properly speaking, irregular, though it may seem to be so from its being founded on a new (?) principle: namely, that of counting in each line the accents, not the syllables. Though the latter may vary from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found to be only four."
The normal form of the line of the present poem is that simple one of eight syllables, consisting of four (so-called) iambics, which is so common in English poetry. But it should be remembered that this line is at all times convertible with one of seven syllables, generally described as consisting of three trochees and a long syllable. This is easily exemplified by taking the first two lines of the Conclusion to the Second Part of Coleridge's "Christabel."
 |  | | | | | | | ||||
| A | lit | | | tle | child | | | a | lim | | | ber | elf | || |
| | | | | | | |||||
| Singing | | | dancing | | | to | it | | | self | || | |||
This is adopting the common form of scansion given in English prosodies, which is far from being a very correct method; since to make trochaic and iambic metres convertible is to introduce all sorts of confusion.
The fact is, that the seven-syllable line, though trochaic to the ear, is really an iambic line, of which the first syllable is deficient, i.e., supplied by a pause; and the truer scansion is,