Caudate Stanza or Tail Rhymed Stanza

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English Verse

The Caudate or Tail Rhymed Stanza was a popular stanzaic form in 12th-14th century England. Variations also can be found in France in the form of the Rime Couée and Scotland in the Burns Stanza. Tail Rhymed Stanza simply refers to a stanza from 6 or 12 lines long with 1 or 2 short lines that carry the same rhyme.

The elements of the Caudate or Tail Rhymed Stanza are:

1. stanzaic, most often written in any number of sixains but the stanzas could be 12 lines each.
2. metered, often accentual with longer lines or 4 stresses and one or two lines of only 2 stresses. The lines are also found written in trochaic or iambic tetrameter with one or two lines dimeter. The shorter lines are most commonly in L3,L6,L9 & L12 but can be found in different arrangements as in the Burns Stanza
3. rhymed, the most common schemes are aabaab or aabccb with L2 & L6 being the shorter lines. In a 12 line stanza common schemes are aabccbddbeeb or aabaabaabaab with L3,L6,L9 & L12 being the shorter lines.

   Rural Architecture by William Wordsworth 1801

   THERE'S George Fisher, Charles Fleming, and Reginald Shore,
   Three rosy-cheeked school-boys, the highest not more
   Than the height of a counsellor's bag;
   To the top of GREAT HOW did it please them to climb:
   And there they built up, without mortar or lime,
   A Man on the peak of the crag.
   
   They built him of stones gathered up as they lay:
   They built him and christened him all in one day,
   An urchin both vigorous and hale;
   And so without scruple they called him Ralph Jones.
   Now Ralph is renowned for the length of his bones;
   The Magog of Legberthwaite dale.

   Just half a week after, the wind sallied forth,
   And, in anger or merriment, out of the north,
   Coming on with a terrible pother,
   From the peak of the crag blew the giant away.
   And what did these school-boys?--The very next day
   They went and they built up another.
   
   --Some little I've seen of blind boisterous works
   By Christian disturbers more savage than Turks,
   Spirits busy to do and undo:
   At remembrance whereof my blood sometimes will flag;
   Then, light-hearted Boys, to the top of the crag!
   And I'll build up giant with you.