Zoned Out On Poetry #4

Rhyme

Rhyme is another literary device that may be used by poets. It is principally a function of sound rather than spelling and often serves to unify and establish a poem’s stanzaic form. There are different rhyme patterns and schemes. End rhyme, the most common type, is the rhyming of the final syllables of a line. Some simple end rhyme schemes are ABAB (where the first and third lines rhyme; and so do the second and fourth) or ABCB (where just the second and fourth lines rhyme). Sonnets, limericks, and ballads often include rhymes.

Here is an example of a sonnet by Elizabeth Barret Browning which utilises the ABBA ABBA CDC DCD scheme in the four quatrains. 

Sonnet 43

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints―I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!―and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.”

While sonnets are usually highly charged passionate outpourings, limericks are humorous poems with five lines with an AABBA rhyme scheme. Edward Lear was probably responsible for making them as popular as they are today. He wrote and illustrated a book of limericks called A Book of Nonsense which was first published in 1846. Here is one of his limericks:

There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, 'It is just as I feared!
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!'