The brid|des sing|e, it is | no nay, The spar|hauk and | the pap|ejay, that joy|e it was | to here. The thrus|telcok made eek | his lay, The wo|de dowv|e upon | the spray She sang | ful loud|e and clere.
As soon|e as the em|peroure yil|dyd the gast, A prowd|e gar|son came | in haste, Sir Syn|agote | hight he-- And broght | an hun|dred hel|mes bright Of har|dy men | that cowd|e wel fight Of felde | wolde ne|ver oon flee.
The plain form, as Chaucer, of malice prepense, showed in the above, is particularly liable to sing-song effect.
(_a_) A very considerable number of these were introduced, sometimes no doubt by direct imitation of French or (as in the case of the "Burns-metre,"[34]) Provençal originals, sometimes by the ingenuity of the individual poet, working on the plastic material of the blended language, according to the new metrical foot-system. They all scan easily by this, as may be seen in a stanza of _Tristrem_, one of the Harleian Lyrics, and a "Burns stanza" from the York Plays; while anapæstic substitution, amounting to something like "triple time" as a whole, appears in the Hampolian extract.
The king | had a douh|ter dere, That mai|den Y|sonde hight, That gle | was lef | to here And romaun|ce to rede | aright. Sir Tram|tris hir | gan lere, Tho, | with al | his might, What al|le poin|tès were To se | the sothe |in sight, To say, In Yr|lond nas | no knight, With Y|sonde | durst play.
(_Three_-foot iambic with single-foot "bob." All final _e_'s sounded or elided. One monosyllabic, and two or three trisyllabic, substitutions.)
Bytuen|e Mershe | ant A|veril when spray bigin|neth to springe, The lut|el foul | hath hi|re wyl on hy|re lud | to synge; Ich lib|be in ^|^ love-|longinge For sem | lokest | of al|le thynge, He may | me ^|^ blis|se bringe, icham | in hire | baundoun. An hen|dy hap | ichab|be y-hent, Ichot | from hevene | it is | me sent, From alle | wymmen | mi love | is lent ant lyht | on A|lysoun.
(_Alison_, Harleian MS. p. 27, ed. Wright.)
(From the other stanzas it appears that the middle quatrain should consist of three eights and a six, and that something has dropped--supplied now by carets. Otherwise the scheme is clear.)
Fro thaym | is lost[e] | both[e] game | and glee. He bad|de that they | schuld mais|ters be Over all[e] kenn[e] thing, | outy-taen | a tree He taught | them to be And ther-|to went[e] | both she | and he Agagne | his wille.