These are inter alia _The Story of Genesis and Exodus_, _The Owl and Nightingale_, _The Lay of Havelok_, _Sir Orfeo_, _King Alisander_, several compositions of Chaucer's,[143] as, for instance, _The Book of the Duchesse_, _The House of Fame_, Gower's _Confessio Amantis_, and others. The last work, as well as _The Owl and Nightingale_, is written in almost perfectly regular iambic verses, in which the syllables are strictly counted. The other compositions more frequently admit the familiar rhythmical licences and have a freer movement, but none to the same extent as the _Pater Noster_. In artistic perfection this metre presents itself to us in Chaucer, who was particularly skilful in employing and varying the enjambement. A short specimen from his _House of Fame_ (ll. 151-74) will illustrate this:
_Fírst sawgh I thé destrúccióun Of Tróy, thórgh the Gréke Synóun, Wíth his fálse fórswerýnge, And his chére and hís lesýnge Máde the hórs broght into Tróye, Thorgh whích Tróyens lost ál her joýe. And áfter thís was gráve, allás, How Ílyóun assáyled wás And wónne, and kýnge Pr+iá+m ysláyne And Políte his sóne, certáyne, Dispítouslý of dáun Pirr+ú+s, And néxt that sáwgh I hów V+e+n+ú+s, Whan thát she sáwgh the cástel brénde, Dóune fro the hévene gán descénde, And bád hir sóne Enéas flée; And hów he fléd, and hów that hé Escáped wás from ál the prés, And tóoke his fáder, Ánch+i+sés, And báre hym ón hys bákke awáy, Crýinge 'Allás and wélawáy!' The whíche Anchíses ín hys hónde Báre the góddes óf the lónde, Thílke thát unbrénde wére. And Í saugh néxt in ál hys fére_, &c.
§ =130.= Four-foot verses often occur also in Middle English in connexion with other metrical forms, especially with three-foot verses, e.g. in the Septenary, which is resolved by the rhyme into two short lines, and in the tail-rhyme stanza, or _rime couée_ (cf. §§ 78, 79).
In these combinations the structure of the metre remains essentially the same, only there are in many poems more frequent instances of suppression of the anacrusis, so that the metre assumes a variable cadence, partly trochaic, partly iambic. At the end of the Middle English period the four-foot verse was, along with other metrical forms, employed by preference in the earlier dramatic productions, and was skilfully used by Heywood, among others, in his interlude, _The Four P.'s_.[144]