Rhyme Scheme

• Rhyme Scheme is the pattern in which sounds in lines of poetry end.

• Each new sound in a poem is assigned a different letter. (The first line of a rhyming poem is always assigned the letter “a.”)

• If a sound repeats, it is assigned the same letter as the line in which the same sound appeared.

• Rhyme schemes continue through to the end of a poem, no matter how many lines or stanzas it contains; do not start over with a new rhyme scheme in each stanza.

• If you find a line that rhymes with a previous line, label it with the same letter as the earlier line. Remember that a line in the third stanza of a poem could rhyme with a line in the first stanza.

• Also be aware of slant or near rhymes, which are words that sound similar but do not exactly match.

Find the Rhyme Scheme in the following poems:

Mary had a little lamb

Whose Fleece was white as snow,

And everywhere that Mary went

The lamb was sure to go.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

All the kings horses and all the king's men

Couldn't put Humpty together again.

Bad Morning By Langston Hughes    

Here I sitWith my shoes mismated.

Lawdy-mercy!I's frustrated!

Celery By Ogden Nash  

Celery, raw Develops the jaw,

But celery, stewed, Is more quietly chewed.

Fire and IceBy Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desireI hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,I think I know enough of hateTo say that for destruction ice

Is also greatAnd would suffice. 

A Farewell by Lord Alfred Tennyson

Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,Thy tribute wave deliver:

No more by thee my steps shall be,For ever and for ever.

Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,A rivulet then a river;

No where by thee my steps shall be,For ever and for ever.

But here will sigh thine alder tree,And here thine aspen shiver;

And here by thee will hum the bee,For ever and for ever.

A thousand suns will stream on thee,A thousand moons will quiver;

But not by thee my steps shall be,For ever and for ever.

At the Un-National Monument Along the Canadian Border

William Stafford

This is the field where the battle did not happen,

where the unknown soldier did not die.

This is the field where grass joined hands,

where no monument stands,

and the only heroic thing is the sky.

Birds fly here without any sound,

unfolding their wings across the open.

No people killed — or were killed — on this ground

hallowed by neglect and an air so tame

that people celebrate it by forgetting its name.

The Fish by William Butler Yeats

Although you hide in the ebb and flowOf the pale tide when the moon has set,

The people of coming days will knowAbout the casting out of my net,

And how you have leaped times out of mind

Over the little silver cords,And think that you were hard and unkind,And blame you with many bitter words.