See his Remains, 1614, p. 337, "Riming verses, which are called versus leonini, I know not wherefore, (for a lyon's taile doth not answer to the middle parts as these verses doe,) began in the time of Carolus Magnus, and were only in request then, and in many ages following, which delighted in nothing more than in this minstrelsie of meeters.

Spenser's stanza is in nine lines, eight of five feet each and the last of six feet, riming ababbcbcc.

The piece is likewise important from a metrical point of view, since it not only contains a free intermixture of ottava and terza rima, and hendecasyllables with rimalmezzo, a favourite verse form in certain kinds of composition, but likewise foreshadows, in its mingling of freely riming hendecasyllables with settenarî, the peculiar measures of the pastoral drama proper.