In the manuscript the verses, though rhyming in long lines, are written as short lines, with intermittent rhyme _a b c b d b e b_, just as the example of Modern English eight-foot iambic verse, quoted before (p. 127), is found printed with this arrangement, as is indeed generally the case with most long-line forms of that type. This metre calls for no other remarks on its rhythmical structure than will have to be made with regard to the four-foot verse. § =126.= The four-foot line, rhyming in couplets, first appears in a paraphrase of the _Pater Noster_ of the end of the twelfth century,[142] doubtless in imitation of the Old French _vers octosyllabe_ made known in England by Anglo-Norman poets, such as Gaimar, Wace, Benoit, &c. This French metre consists of eight syllables when the ending is monosyllabic, and nine when it is disyllabic. The lines are always connected in couplets by rhyme, but masculine and feminine rhymes need not alternate with one another. It is exactly the same with the Middle English four-foot line, except that the rising iambic rhythm comes out more clearly in it, and that, instead of the Romanic principle of counting the syllables, that of the equality of beats is perceptible, so that the equality of the number of syllables in the verses is not so strictly observed. Hence, all the deviations before mentioned from the strict formal structure of even-beat verses occur even in this early poem, and quite regularly constructed couplets are indeed but rare in it. Examples of this type are the following: _Ah, láverd gód, her úre béne, Of úre súnne máke us cléne, Þet hé us ȝéue alswá he méi, Þet ús bihóueð úlche déi._ ll. 167-170. The first ten lines of the poem give a sufficient idea of the structure of the verse, and its characteristics: _Ure féder þét in héouene ís, Þet ís all sóþ fúl iwís! Weo móten tó þeos wéordes iséon, Þet to líue and to sáule góde béon, Þet wéo beon swá his súnes ibórene, Þet hé beo féder and wé him icórene, Þet wé don álle hís ibéden Ánd his wílle fór to réden. Lóke weo ús wið hím misdón Þurh béelzebúbes swíkedóm._ Here we find almost all the rhythmical licences to be found in even-beat metres. Thus we have suppression of the anacrusis in line 8 and again in two consecutive lines, such as 15, 16: _Gíf we léornið gódes láre, Þénne of-þúnceð hít him sáre;_