Alliterative-rhymed lines, the connexion of which into stanzas or staves will be treated of in the second part of this work under the heading of the 'Bob-wheel-stanza', were used during the Middle English period alike in lyric, epic, and dramatic poetry.
§ =59. Lyrical stanzas.= The earliest stanzas written in alliterative rhyming lines were lyrical.
We must distinguish between isometric and anisometric stanza forms. In the former the whole stanza consists of four-beat alliterative lines, commonly rhyming according to a very simple scheme (either _a a a a_ or _a b a b_). In the latter four-beat long lines as a rule are combined with isolated lines of one measure only and with several of two measures to form the stanza. The two-beat verses frequently have a somewhat lengthened structure (to be discussed further on sections on the epic stanzas), in consequence of which many of them having theses with secondary accents can be read either as even-beat verses of three measures or as three-beat verses on the model of those in _King Horn_. The four-beat alliterative lines, on the other hand, are mostly of more regular structure, the distances between the first and second arsis not being so unequal and the theses as a rule being disyllabic. The anacrusis too in these verses admits of a somewhat free treatment. The difference, however, between the first and second hemistich is less conspicuous than it was in those forms of the Middle English alliterative line before mentioned. Alliteration, on the other hand, is abundantly used.
The main rhythmic character of the verse is again indicated here by the frequent occurrence of the types A and A1. The types BC, BC1, C, C1, however, likewise occur pretty often, and the two last types present serious obstacles to the assumption that the lines of these poems were ever recited with an even beat. But how exactly these poems were recited or to what sort of musical accompaniment can hardly be definitely decided in the absence of external evidence.
The first verses of a West-Midland poem of the end of the thirteenth century (Wright's _Political Songs_, p. 149) may serve as a specimen:
_Ich herde =m=én vpo =m=óld | =m=áke muche =m=ón, Hou hé beþ i=t=éned | of here =t=ílýnge: =G=óde [gh]eres and córn | bóþe beþ a=g=ón, Ne képeþ here no =s=áwe | ne no =s=óng =s=ýnge._