If hunger, proverbs say, allures the wolf from wood, Much more the bird must dare a dash at something good: Must snatch up, bear away in beak, the trifle-treasure To wood and wild, and then--O how enjoy at leisure! Was never tree-built nest, you climbed and took, of bird, (Rare city-visitant, talked of, scarce seen or heard,) But, when you would dissect the structure, piece by piece, You found, enwreathed amid the country-product--fleece And feather, thistle-fluffs and bearded windlestraws-- Some shred of foreign silk, unravelling of gauze, Bit, maybe, of brocade, mid fur and blow-bell-down: Filched plainly from mankind, dear tribute paid by town, Which proved how oft the bird had plucked up heart of grace, Swooped down at waif and stray, made furtively our place Pay tax and toll, then borne the booty to enrich Her paradise i' the waste; the how and why of which, That is the secret, there the mystery that stings! (BROWNING: _Fifine at the Fair_, ix. 1872.) Browning has made of the alexandrine in this poem an almost new measure, hardly more like the alexandrine couplet of earlier days than the measure of _Sordello_ is like the "heroic couplet" proper. In general, the modern use of the alexandrine is characterized by increased freedom in the placing of the cesura. It is also distinguished from the early French and Middle English forms by the fact that the cesura and the ending are commonly masculine. By far the most frequent use of the alexandrine in English poetry is as a variant from the five-stress line. For instances of this, see the section on the Spenserian stanza, pp. 102-108, above, and Corson's chapters on the Spenserian stanza and its influence, in his _Primer of English Verse_. In connection with Dryden's use of the alexandrine as a variant from the heroic couplet, Mr. Saintsbury makes some interesting observations on the measure: "The metre, though a well-known English critic has maltreated it of late, is a very fine one; and some of Dryden's own lines are unmatched examples of that 'energy divine' which has been attributed to him. In an essay on the alexandrine in English poetry, which yet remains to be written, and which would be not the least valuable of contributions to poetical criticism, this use of the verse would have to be considered, as well as its regular recurrent employment at the close of the Spenserian stanza, and its continuous use.... An examination of the _Polyolbion_ and of _Fifine at the Fair_, side by side, would, I think, reveal capacities, somewhat unexpected even in this form of arrangement. But so far as the occasional alexandrine is concerned, it is not a hyperbole to say that a number, out of all proportion, of the best lines in English poetry may be found in the closing verses of the Spenserian stave as used by Spenser himself, by Shelley, and by the present Laureate, and in the occasional alexandrines of Dryden.