What Is Rhyme Scheme? | Definition, Types & Poem Examples (2024)

Rhyme scheme definition

Arhyme schemeis the ordered pattern of rhyming words at the end of each line of a poem. This pattern is labeled using capital letters, such as the commonABABrhyme scheme, orABABCBCDCDEDEEfor a terza rima, orABABBCBCfor a ballade.

Types of rhyme scheme

The long history of poetry includes a lot of rhyme, the deliberate correspondence of sounds between words (or their endings) usually at the end of lines in poems. A rhyme scheme is the ordered pattern of those rhyming arrangements from line to line in a poem.

Here are some different rhyme schemes that are commonly used:

The human brain has evolved to find rhyme and rhythm very appealing. When words rhyme, we tend to remember them better than words that do not rhyme. Songs that rhyme tend to stick in your head better than free-form songs.

Song lyrics start as poetry, and rhyme schemes have been connected to poetry for as long as poets, storytellers, and balladeers have been entertained us.

Rhyme scheme examples

The earliest rhyming poetry seems to come from China, in 600 BCE, with “The Book of Songs.” Here is one of the poems:

Plop fall the plums; but there are still seven.Let any gentleman that would court meCome while it is lucky!Plop fall the plums; there are still three.Let any gentleman that would court meCome before it is too late!Plop fall the plums; in shallow baskets we lay them.Any gentleman who would court meHad better speak while there is time.

Notice the second and third lines rhyme (“me” rhymes with “lucky”), but not the first: we use a shorthand,ABB. The next two lines match lines two and three, but the sixth line does not:BBC. The poem finishes withDBE.

Common rhyme schemes

A ballade is a rhyming poem with a defined rhyme scheme ofABABBCBC, seen here in one stanza from Andrew Lang’s “Ballade of the Optimist,” written in 1905:

Heed not the folk who sing or sayIn sonnet sad or sermon chill,"Alas, alack, and well-a-day,This round world's but a bitter pill."Poor porcupines of fretful quill!Sometimes we quarrel with our lot:We, too, are sad and careful; stillWe'd rather be alive than not.

Aterza rimais an Italian rhyming verse stanza form built with an interlocking three-line rhyme scheme. The rhyme scheme isABABCBCDCDED, and so on. Here is Robert Frost’s take on the terza rima, “Acquainted With the Night,” published in 1928:

I have been one acquainted with the night.I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.I have outwalked the furthest city light.I have looked down the saddest city lane.I have passed by the watchman on his beatAnd dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.I have stood still and stopped the sound of feetWhen far away an interrupted cryCame over houses from another street,But not to call me back or say good-bye;And further still at an unearthly height,One luminary clock against the skyProclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.I have been one acquainted with the night.

Thecoupletis a familiar rhyme scheme followingAABBCCand continuing. Here is a sliver of Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales,” written around 1400 BCE (first in Middle English, then in modern English):

A Knyght ther was, and that a worthy man,That fro the tyme that he first biganTo riden out, he loved chivalrie,Trouthe and honóur, fredom and curteisie.A KNIGHT there was, and that (one was) a worthy man,Who from the time that he first beganTo ride out, he loved chivalry,Fidelity and good reputation, generosity and courtesy.

A lot of modern poetry is written asfree verse, in which the poets deliberately avoid rhyme and meter.Sing-songy children’s poems tend to have very simple rhyming patterns, like this:

Star light, star bright,First star I see tonight,I wish I may, I wish I might,Have this wish I wish tonight.

The pattern of rhymes in this anonymously written poem is that all three lines have the same end rhyme:AAA.

A nursery rhyme like “Jack and Jill,” by Mother Goose, shows a more complicated rhyming scheme, which we can follow by writing the capital letters at each line’s end:

Jack and Jill went up the hill (A)To fetch a pail of water; (B)Jack fell down and broke his crown, (C)and Jill came tumbling after. (B)Up Jack got, and home did trot, (D)As fast as he could caper, (E)To old Dame Dob, who patched his nob (F)With vinegar and brown paper. (E)

The words “water” and “after” are near-rhymes or slant rhymes and count for the rhyme scheme. The eight-line poem’s rhyme scheme then isABCBDEFE.

Our ears tend to enjoy predictability spiced with a little bit of unpredictability in both song lyrics and poetry. Shakespearean sonnets follow the rigid rhyming pattern ofABABCDCDEFEFGGwhile also staying faithful to iambic pentameter.Here is Shakespeare’s Sonnet 17:

Who will believe my verse in time to come,If it were filled with your most high deserts?Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tombWhich hides your life, and shows not half your parts.If I could write the beauty of your eyes,And in fresh numbers number all your graces,The age to come would say 'This poet lies;Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces.'So should my papers, yellowed with their age,Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,And your true rights be termed a poet's rageAnd stretched metre of an antique song:But were some child of yours alive that time,You should live twice, in it, and in my rhyme.

The sonnet form lulls the reader into the steady rhythm of the alternating ABAB, but the last two lines break the pattern and rhyme together: GG. These are rhyming couplets. It is predictability with a surprise new rhyme at the end.

How To Find Rhyme Scheme Of A Poem

To find the rhyming scheme of any poem, study the final words of each line. Use capital letters, starting withAA, for each line. If the first and second lines rhyme, you writeAAAA; if they do not, you writeABAB. Continue through the poem, leaving a space between stanzas.

Here is a 1939 nursery rhyme by George Sanders and Clarence Kelley for practice:

I'm a little teapot,Short and stout,Here is my handleHere is my spoutWhen I get all steamed up,Hear me shout,Tip me over and pour me out!I'm a very special teapot,Yes, it's true,Here's an example of what I can do,I can turn my handle into a spout,Tip me over and pour me out!

The first stanza’s rhyme scheme isABCBDBB. The second stanza’s rhyme scheme isADDBB.

Rhyme scheme quiz

Show what you know by answering these questions three:

1. How would you describe the rhyme scheme of this poem?

   There was a young man so benightedHe never knew when he was slighted;He would go to a partyAnd eat just as hearty,As if he'd been really invited.

2. What is a rhyme pattern?

3. Please explain in your own words how to determine a rhyme scheme.

You answered, we know, before looking below.

1. The rhyme scheme of this limerick is AABBA.

2. A rhyme pattern is the arrangement of rhyming lines. Most people enjoy mixing in a little unpredictability with predictable patterns, so rhyme schemes often have unexpected rhyming patterns, such as with a sonnet or terza rima.

3. Your explanation of how to determine a rhyme scheme probably mentioned using capital letters at the end of each line to indicate rhyming words, starting with A.