The time was once, and may againe retorne, (For ought may happen that hath bene beforne), When shepheards had none inheritaunce, Ne of land, nor fee in sufferaunce, But what might arise of the bare sheepe, (Were it more or lesse) which they did keepe. Well ywis was it with shepheards thoe: Nought having, nought feared they to forgoe; For Pan himselfe was their inheritaunce, And little them served for their mayntenaunce. The shepheards God so wel them guided, That of nought they were unprovided; Butter enough, honye, milke, and whay, And their flockes' fleeces them to araye. (SPENSER: _The Shepherd's Calendar, May._ 1579.) Spenser's use of the tumbling verse in the _Shepherd's Calendar_ was a part of his imitation of older forms for the sake of an uncultivated, bucolic effect. In his hands the irregular measure showed a tendency to reduce itself to regular ten-syllable lines, like the first two of the present specimen, which, by themselves, might easily be read as decasyllabic iambics. On this, see further under Five-Stress Verse. Spenser was perhaps the last cultivated poet to use the irregular measure, until we come to modern imitators of the early popular poetry. The following specimen is of this class. It was up in the morn we rose betimes From the hall-floor hard by the row of limes. It was but John the Red and I, And we were the brethren of Gregory; And Gregory the Wright was one Of the valiant men beneath the sun, And what he bade us that we did, For ne'er he kept his counsel hid. So out we went, and the clattering latch Woke up the swallows under the thatch. It was dark in the porch, but our scythes we felt, And thrust the whetstone under the belt. Through the cold garden boughs we went Where the tumbling roses shed their scent. Then out a-gates and away we strode O'er the dewy straws on the dusty road, And there was the mead by the town-reeve's close Where the hedge was sweet with the wilding rose. (WILLIAM MORRIS: _The Folk-Mote by the River._ In _Poems by the Way_. 1896.) B.--SYLLABLE-COUNTING (OCTOSYLLABIC COUPLET) The more regular four-stress verse, in rimed couplets showing a tendency to be octosyllabic, we have seen to be generally attributed to the influence of the French octosyllabics, which were in common use in late mediæval French poetry, such as that of Wace and Chrestien de Troyes.