Thus:[31]

Dulce vecino de la verde selva,
Huesped eterno del Abril florido,
Vital aliento de la madre Venus,
Cefiro blando.
(Villegas, _Al cefiro_)

[Footnote 31: Mele (_op. cit_) states that the Sapphic ode
was introduced into Spain from Italy by Antonio Agustin,
bishop of Tarragona, in the first half of the sixteenth
century, and quotes these lines by Agustin:

Jupiter torna, como suele, rico:
Cuerno derrama Jove copioeso,
Ya que bien puede el pegaseo monte
Verse y la cumbre.
page lxv
The romanticists used the _versos saficos_ with rime.
Thus, Zorrilla:

Huye la fuente al manantial ingrata,
El verde musgo en derredor lamiendo,
Y el agua limpia en su cristal retrata
Cuanto va viendo.
(p. 86, ll. 3-6)

In the Sapphic strophe of Francisco de la Torre (d. 1594),
the short line has seven syllables, and the long line may
have inner rhythmic accent on the sixth, or on the fourth
syllable. Thus:

El frio Boreas y el helado Noto
Apoderados de la mar insana
Anegaron agora en este puerto
Una dichosa nave.
(_iTirsi, Tirsi! vuelve y endereza_)

The Sapphic strophe of Francisco de la Torre has been not
infrequently imitated. Thus, Becquer:

Volveran las obscuras golondrinas
En tu balcon sus nidos a colgar,
Y, otra vez, con el ala a sus cristales
Jugando llamaran.
(p. 122, l. 24-p. 123, l. 2)[32]

[Footnote 32: These long lines are especially cantabile, as
most are accented on the third and sixth syllables. Only
one is accented on the fourth and eighth.]

The 7-syllable line is commonly used in combination with
those of eleven syllables (see above). In the seventeenth
century, particularly, the 7-syllable line was used in
anacreontics, artistic _romances, quintillas,_ page lxvi
etc., in imitation of the Italian _settenario_, as in
Villegas' _Cantilena_ beginning:

Yo vi sobre un tomillo
Quejarse un pajarillo,
Viendo su nido amado,
De quien era caudillo,
De un labrador robado.

In present-day songs the 7-syllable line is rather rare,
except in combination with lines of five syllables, as in:

Camino de Valencia,
Camino largo...

And:

A la puerta del cielo
Venden zapatos...

In these lines there is no fixed inner rhythmic accent.

The Old Spanish Alexandrine verse-line was composed of two
7-syllable half-lines. I