Rime Royale

The rime royale, or rhyme royal, was popularized by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th Century.  His imitator, James I of Scotland, also used it in his own verse; hence, the term "rime royale".  Each stanza of the rime royale consists of seven lines, each of ten syllables.  The rhyming scheme is: ABABBCC.  See Troilus and Criseyde (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173193).  Sir Thomas Wyatt composed They Flee from Me, also a rime royale, in the 16th Century (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174858).

They flee from me that sometime did me seek

With naked foot, stalking in my chamber

I have seen them gentle, tame and meek,

That now are wild and do not remember

That sometime they put themself in danger

To take bread at my hand; and now they range,

Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise

Twenty times better; but once in special,

In thin array after a pleasant guise

When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall

And she me caught in her arms long and small;

Therewithall sweetly did me kiss

And softly said, "Dear heart, how like you this?"

It was no dream; I lay broad waking.

But all has turned thorough my gentleness

Into a strange fashion of foresaking;

And I have leave to go of her goodness,

And she also to use newfangleness.

But since that I so kindly am served

I would fain know what she hath deserved.

The rime royale went out of favour for a couple of centuries, but reappeared in the 19th Century. Byron popularized the "ottava rima", an 8-line stanza variation on the rime royale.  W. B. Yeat's A Bronze Head is a 20th Century rime royale (http://dversepoets.com/2011/07/28/formforall-rhyme-royal/).

http://educationcing.blogspot.ca/2012/05/thomas-wyatt-they-flee-from-me.html