§ =149.= In Modern English the Alexandrine is also found in a long-lined rhyming form, as, for instance, in the sixteenth century in certain poems by Sidney, but notably in Drayton's _Polyolbion_.
The Modern English Alexandrine is particularly distinguished from the Middle English variety by the fact that the four types of the Middle English Alexandrine are reduced to one, the caesura being regularly masculine and the close of the line nearly always so; further by the very scanty employment of the Teutonic rhythmical licences; cf. the opening lines of the _Polyolbion_ (_Poets_, iii. pp. 239 ff.):
_Of Álbion's glórious ísle | the wónders whílst I wríte, The súndry várying sóils, | the pléasures ínfiníte, Where héat kills nót the cóld, | nor cóld expéls the héat, The cálms too míldly smáll, | nor wínds too róughly gréat_, &c.
Minor caesuras seldom occur, and generally in the second hemistich, as, e.g., minor lyric caesuras after the first foot:
_Wise génius, | bý thy hélp || that só I máy descrý._ 240 a;
or masculine caesura after the second foot:
_Ye sácred bárds | that to || your hárps' melódious stríngs._ ib.
Enjambement is only sporadically met with; breaking of the rhyme still more seldom.
Less significance is to be attached to the fact that Brysket, in a poem on Sidney's death, entitled _The Mourning Muse of Thestylis_ (printed with Spenser's works, Globe edition, p. 563), makes Alexandrines rhyme together, not in couplets, but in an arbitrary order; further, that Surrey and Blennerhasset occasionally composed in similarly constructed rhymeless Alexandrines (cf. _Metrik_, ii, p. 83).
Of greater importance is the structure of the Alexandrine when used as the concluding line of the Spenserian stanza and of its imitations.
It is here noteworthy that the lyric caesura, unusual in Middle English, often occurs in Spenser after the first hemistich:
_That súch a cúrsed créature || líves so lóng a spáce._ F. Q. I. i. 31;
as well as in connexion with minor caesuras:
_Upón his fóe, | a Drágon, || hórriblé and stéarne._ ib. I. i. 3.
The closing line of the Spenserian stanza is similarly handled by other poets, such as Thomson, Scott, Wordsworth, while poets like Pope, Byron, Shelley, and others admit only masculine caesuras after the third foot. By itself the Alexandrine has not often been employed in Modern English.