This document provides information about rhyme schemes in poetry. It defines rhyme scheme as the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line in a poem or song. Letters are used to indicate which lines rhyme, with lines with the same letter rhyming. Examples of common rhyme schemes are provided for sonnets and other forms of poetry, including Shakespearean sonnets, Petrarchan sonnets, and songs. Rhyme schemes for sample poems are identified.

1. RHYME SCHEME
Hazel A. Cabigting

2. Rhyme Scheme
is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each
line of a poem or song.
It is usually referred to by using letters to
indicate which lines rhyme;
lines designated with the same letter all
rhyme with each other.

4. I
They're tiny and they're teeny,
Much smaller than a beany,
They never can be seeny,
The Atoms Family.
Chorus:
They are so small.
(snap,snap)
They're round like a ball.
(snap,snap)
They make up the air.
They're everywhere.
Can't see them at all.
(snap,snap)
II
Together they make gases,
And liquids like molasses,
And all the solid masses,
The Atoms Family
Neutrons can be found,
Where protons hang around;
Electrons they surround
The Atoms Family
The Atom’s Family

5. SONNET 29 by George Santayana (1863-1952)
•
What riches have you that you deem me poor,
Or what large comfort that you call me sad?
Tell me what makes you so exceeding glad:
Is your earth happy or your heaven sure?
I hope for heaven, since the stars endure
And bring such tidings as our fathers had.
I know no deeper doubt to make me mad,
I need no brighter love to keep me pure.

6. To me the faiths of old are daily bread;
I bless their hope, I bless their will to save,
And my deep heart still meaneth what they said.
It makes me happy that the soul is brave,
And, being so much kinsman to the dead,
I walk contented to the peopled grave.
http://www.rrb3.com/breaker/poetry/poems%20by%20others/sonnet_29.htm

7. Rhyme Scheme of a Sonnet
refers to the pattern formed by the
rhyming words at the end of each line. Each
end-rhyme is assigned a letter, and the
fourteen letters assigned to the sonnet
describe the rhyme scheme.

8. Rhyme Scheme of a Sonnet
Different kinds of sonnets
have different rhyme schemes.

9. The Petrarchan or Italian sonnet
• named after the fourteenth century
Italian poet Petrarch, has the rhyme
scheme ABBAABBA CDECDE.
• Variant rhyme schemes for the sestet also
include CDCDCD and CDEDCE.

10. Emma Lazarus' 'The New Colossus'
'Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, (A)
With conquering limbs astride from land to land; (B)
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand (B)
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame (A)
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name (A)
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand (B)
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command (B)
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. (A)
'Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!' cries she (C)
With silent lips. 'Give me your tired, your poor, (D)
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, (C)
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. (D)
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, (C)
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!' (D)

11. THE SHAKESPEAREAN OR ENGLISH SONNET
The Shakespearean or English sonnet
was actually developed in the
sixteenth century by the Earl of
Surrey.

12. The Shakespearean or English sonnet
The Shakespearean or English sonnet
has the rhyme scheme
ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

13. Sonnet 129 by Shakespeare
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame A
Is lust in action; and till action, lust B
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame, A
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust B
Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight, C
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had D
Past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait C
On purpose laid to make the taker mad; D
Mad in pursuit and in possession so; E
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme; F
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe; E
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream. F
··All this the world well knows; yet none knows well G
··To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell. G

14. The Spenserian sonnet is a variation of
the English sonnet with the rhyme
scheme ABAB BCBC CDCD EE, in
which the quatrains are linked by a
continuation of one end-rhyme from
the previous quatrain.

15. Sonnet No. 41, from Amoretti
Is it her nature or is it her will, (A)
To be so cruel to an humbled foe? (B)
If nature, then she may it mend with skill, (A)
If will, then she at will may will forgo. (B)
But if her nature and her will be so, (B)
that she will plague the man that loves her most: (C)
And take delight t'increase a wretch's woe, (B)
Then all her nature's goodly gifts are lost. (C)
And that same glorious beauty's idle boast, (C)
Is but a bait such wretches to beguile: (D)
As being long in her love's tempest tossed, (C)
She means at last to make her piteous spoil. (D)
Of fairest fair let never it be named, (E)
That so fair beauty was so foully shamed. (E)

16. Identify the rhyme scheme pattern
of the following poems

17. 1. Lifting her arms to soap her hair
Her pretty breasts respond – and there
The movement of that buoyant pair
Is like a spell to make me swear…

18. 2. Here in your arms
is where I belong
The beating of your heart
is like a beautiful song

19. 3. The people along the sand
All turn and look one way.
They turn their back on the land.
They look at the sea all day.
As long as it takes to pass
A ship keeps raising its hull;
The wetter ground like glass
Reflects a standing gull.
Neither Out Far nor in Deep by Robert Frost

20. 4. (1/3)
1-Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
2-Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
3-Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
4-And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
5-Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
Shakespeare Sonnet 18

21. 4. (2/3)
6-And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
7-And every fair from fair sometime declines,
8-By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
9-But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
10-Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

22. 4. (3/3)
11-Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
12-When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
13-So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
14-So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

23. 5. (1/3)
1-The world is too much with us; late and soon,
2-Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
3-Little we see in Nature that is ours;
4-We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
5-This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The World Is Too Much With Us
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

24. 5. (2/3)
6-The winds that will be howling at all hours,
7-And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
8-For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
9-It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
10-A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

25. 5. (3/3)
11-So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
12-Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
13-Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
14-Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

26. 6. (1/3)
1-Most glorious Lord of life, that on this day
2-Didst make thy triumph over death and sin,
3-And having harrowed hell, didst bring away
4-Captivity thence captive, us to win:
5-This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin,
Most glorious Lord of life, that on this day
By Edmund Spenser

27. 6. (2/3)
6-And grant that we, for whom thou diddest die,
7-Being with thy dear blood clean washed from sin,
8-May live forever in felicity:
9-And that thy love we weighing worthily,
10-May likewise love thee for the same again;

28. 6. (3/3)
11-And for thy sake, that all like dear didst buy,
12-May love with one another entertain.
13-So let us love, dear love, like as we ought,
14-Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.

29. Answer Key
1. ABAB
2. ABCB
3. ABABCCDD
4. ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
5. ABBAABBA CDCDCD
6. ABAB BCBD DECF GG
by Hazel A. Cabigting