Alan, I think the third category exist more in Modern times, but was inspired by admiration for early 17th-Century poetry...it wouldn't be the first time a movement saw more in it's heroes than was really there. Of course, the meter of Donne and Herbert (and even, believe it or not, Hopkins) was mostly more regular than say Robert Lowell, or Howard Nemerov when he was into this kind of thing.
I was actually inspired to add that category to your original remarks beacause of the controversy over "bear"'s posts. His poems clearly fall in that style, along with others you see on the board from time to time. It seemed only fair to deal with that approach on it's own terms.
(and remember how hard you were on my "Shark's head/Totem Pole post? I looked at that again recently...it's not that bad)
I've thought more about the second style. It isn't that there are more feminine endings in the lilting style, but a certain kind-- involving a demotion:
he spied a boat off lands-end.
he rode there on a white horse.
in the two examples, "end" and "horse" might scan as extra un-accented syllables. That's the point , I now think. It might also scan as a concluding anapest. You see a lot of these in late Shakespeare, and especially in John Webster. Later critics deplored the practice. (of course, this is mostly in Blank Verse).
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