_How should I praise thee, Lord! how should my rymes Gladly engrave thy love in steel, If what my soul doth feel sometimes, My soul might ever feel!_ or on _a₄ b₃ a₄ b₅_ in Milton, _Psalm V_ (vol. iii, p. 24): _Jehovah, to my words give ear, My meditation weigh; The voice of my complaining hear, My king and God, for unto thee I pray._ Stanzas like these are very much in vogue, and may be composed of the most varied forms of verse (cf. _Metrik_, ii; § 330). § =259.= Among the =five-lined stanzas= the first place must be given to those in which the arrangement of rhymes is parallel, as these are found in Middle English as well as in Modern English poetry. A stanza of form _a a a₄ b₃ b₆_ occurs in Wright's _Spec. of Lyr. Poetry_, p. 60: _Wynter wakeneþ al my care, nou þis leues waxeþ bare; ofte y sike ant mourne sare, when hit cómeþ in my þóht, óf this wórldes ióie, hóu hit geþ ál to nóht._ A similar structure (_a a a₄ b₃ b₅_) is shown in a stanza of a poem quoted by Ritson, _Ancient Songs_, i. 129; the poem belongs to the fifteenth century. Still more numerous are these stanzas in Modern English; e.g. the form _a a a₃ b b₅_ occurs in Herbert, _Sinne_ (p. 58), _a a a₃ b₄ b₃_ in Shelley (iii. 244), _a a a b₄ b₅_ in Suckling (_Poets_, iii. 734); a still more irregular structure (_a₄ a₅ b b₄ b₅_) in Cowley, _All for love_ (Poets, v. 263): _'Tis well, 'tis well with them, say I. Whose short liv'd passions with themselves can die; For none can be unhappy who, 'Midst all his ills, a time does know_ (_Though ne'er so long_) _when he shall not be so_. Here again we meet with the stanzas mentioned above, which are partially characterized by enclosing rhymes, e.g. corresponding to the formula _a b b a_, as in M. Arnold, _On the Rhine_ (p. 223), or on the scheme _a a b b₄ a₅_, as in Byron, _Oh! snatch'd away_, &c. (p. 123): _Oh! snatch'd away in beauty's bloom, On thee shall press no ponderous tomb; But on thy turf shall roses rear Their leaves, the earliest of the year; And the wild cypress wave in tender gloom._ For other stanzas on the formulas _a a₅ b b₄ A₃_, _a₅ b b₄ a₅ a₄_, _a₃ b b₂ a a₃_, &c., see _Metrik_ (ii, §§ 332, 333). In others the chief part of the stanza shows crossed rhyme, as e.g. on the scheme _a b a b₄ b₃_ in Poe, _To Helen_ (p. 205): _Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, The weary way-worn wanderer bore To his own native shore._ Other stanzas take the forms _a₅ b₄ a₅ b₄ b₅_, _a₅ b₂ a₄ b₃ b₅_, _a₄ b₃ a₄ b₃ b₂_, &c. More uncommon are such forms as _a₃ b b₅ a₄ b₅, a b₅ b₃ a b₅_, &c. (For specimens see _Metrik_, ii, § 334.) Stanzas with crossed rhymes throughout, on the other hand, are very frequent, as e.g. type _a b a b₄ a₃_ in R. Browning's _By the Fireside_ (iii. 170):