in its tripartition corresponds to the first half of the above-quoted Middle English tail-rhyme stanza: _Lustneþ alle a lutel þrowe | ȝe þat wolleþ ou selue yknowe | Unwys þah y be._ When two long lines like this, connected with each other by the rhyme of the last section, the two first sections of each line being also combined by leonine rhyme, are broken up into six short verses, we have the tail-rhyme stanza in the form above described. This form was frequently used in Low Latin poetry, and thence passed into Romanic and Teutonic literature. A form even more extensively used in Middle and Modern English poetry is that in which the tail-verse has feminine instead of masculine endings. A Modern English specimen from Drayton's poem _To Sir Henry Goodere_ (_Poets_, iii. 576) may be quoted; it begins: _These lyric pieces, short and few, Most worthy Sir, I send to you, To read them be not weary: They may become John Hewes his lyre, Which oft at Powlsworth by the fire Hath made us gravely merry._ This, the chief form of the tail-rhyme stanza, has been in use throughout the whole Modern English period. There has, however, never been any fixed rule as to the employment of feminine or masculine rhymes. Sometimes feminine tail-rhymes with masculine couplets are used (as in the example above), sometimes masculine rhymes only, while in other instances masculine and feminine rhymes are employed indiscriminately. Iambic-anapaestic verses of four or three measures were also sometimes used in this form of stanza, as in Moore, _Hero and Leander_. There are a great many varieties of this main form; the stanza may consist, for instance, of four- and two-foot iambic or trochaic lines, or of iambic lines of three and two, five and three, five and two measures, according to the schemes _a a b c c₄ b₂_, _a a₃ b₂ c c₃ b₂_, _a a₅ b₃ c c₅ b₃_, _a a₅ b₂ c c₅ b₂_, and _a₃ b b₅ a₃ c c₅_ (the tail-verses in front). For examples see _Metrik_, ii, § 279. § =241.= The next step in the development of this stanza was its enlargement to twelve lines (_a a₄ b₃ c c₄ b₃ d d₄ b₃ e e₄ b₃_) by doubling. This form occurs in Wright's _Spec. of Lyr. Poetry_, p. 43: _Lenten is come wiþ loue to toune, Wiþ blosmen and wiþ briddes roune, Þat all þis blisse bryngeþ: Dayes eȝes in þis dales, Notes suete of nyhtegales, Vch foule song singeþ. Þe þrestlecoc him þreteþ oo; Away is huere wynter woo, When woderoue springeþ. Þis foules singeþ ferli fele, Ant wlyteþ on huere wynter wele, Þat al þe wode ryngeþ._ We are not in a position to quote a Modern English specimen of this stanza, but it was very popular in Middle English poetry, both in lyrics and in legends or romances, and in later dramatic poetry.[189]