Rhyme, also spelled rime, means echoing or repeating sounds at the end of words. In poetry, rhyme usually occurs at the end of lines, as in this quotation from the Irish poet William Butler Yeats:
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance?
This is an example of end-rhyme. Glance in the first line rhymes with dance in the second. Internal-rhyme refers to the rhyming of two or more words within a line, such as seared, bleared, and smeared in this line by the English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins: “And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil.”
In single rhyme, the final vowel and consonant sounds of the rhyming words are repeated, as in glance and dance. In double rhyme, the last two syllables of the rhyming words are repeated, as in staples and maples. Less frequently, rhymes involve many syllables, as in Tennyson and venison.
In near rhyme, (also called slant rhyme), the words almost rhyme. The words repeat either (1) the final consonant sounds after the last stressed vowel sound, as in have and grave, or (2) the final stressed vowel sound but not the final consonant sounds, as in wake and late. In visual rhyme (also called eye rhyme), the words are connected by the eye, not by the ear, as in tough and through.
Poets often use a rhyme pattern to create an overall form for a poem, as in a sonnet. They may also use individual rhymes for various effects of sound and meaning. However, rhyme is not necessary in poetry. Blank verse and much free verse do not use rhyme.
