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:
 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.
 Celery
By Ogden Nash  
Celery, raw
Develops the jaw,
But celery, stewed,
Is more quietly chewed.
 Fire and Ice
By Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice. 
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 flow

Of the pale tide when the moon has set,
The people of coming days will know
About 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.