Rhyme Scheme - Example Rhyme Schemes

Example Rhyme Schemes

• Alternate rhyme: abab cdcd efef ghgh ijij...
• Ballade: Three stanzas of "ababbcbC" followed by "bcbC". (The capital letters indicate a line repeated verbatim.)
• Chant royal: Five stanzas of "ababccddedE" followed by either "ddedE" or "ccddedE". (The capital letters indicate a line repeated verbatim.)
• Cinquain: "A,B,A,B,B"
• Clerihew: "A,A,B,B"
• Couplet: "A,A", but usually occurs as "A,A, B,B C,C D,D ..."
• Enclosed rhyme (or enclosing rhyme): "ABBA"
• "Fire and Ice" stanza: "ABAABCBCB" as used in Robert Frost's poem "Fire and Ice"
• Keatsian Ode: "ABABCDECDE" used in Keat's Ode on Indolence, Ode on a Grecian Urn, and Ode to a Nightingale.
• Limerick: "AABBA"
• Monorhyme: "A,A,A,A,A...", an identical rhyme on every line, common in Latin and Arabic
• Ottava rima: "A,B,A,B,A,B,C,C"
• The Raven stanza: "ABCBBB", or "AA,B,CC,CB,B,B" when accounting for internal rhyme, as used by Edgar Allan Poe in "The Raven"
• Rhyme royal: "ABABBCC"
• Rondelet: "AbAabbA"
• Rubaiyat: "AABA"
• Scottish stanza: "AAABAB", as used by Robert Burns in works such as "To a Mouse"
• Simple 4-line: "ABCB"
• Sonnet
  • Petrarchan sonnet: "ABBA ABBA CDE CDE" or "ABBA ABBA CDC DCD"
  • Shakespearean sonnet: "ABAB CDCD EFEF GG"
  • Spenserian sonnet: "ABAB BCBC CDCD EE"
  • Onegin stanzas: "aBaBccDDeFFeGG" with the lowercase letters representing feminine rhymes and the uppercase representing masculine rhymes, written in iambic tetrameter
• Sestina: ABCDEF FAEBDC CFDABE ECBFAD DEACFB BDFECA, the seventh stanza is a tercet where line 1 has A in it but ends with D, line 2 has B in it but ends with E, line 3 has C in it but ends with F
• Spenserian stanza: "ABABBCBCC"
• Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening form: "AABA BBCB CCDC DDDD" a modified Ruba'i stanza used by Robert Frost for the eponymous poem.
• Tanaga: traditional Tagalog tanaga is "AAAA"
• Terza rima: "ABA BCB CDC ...", ending on "YZY Z", "YZY ZZ", or "YZY ZYZ".
• Triplet: "AAA", often repeating like the couplet.
• The Road Not Taken stanza: "ABAAB" as used in Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken.
• Villanelle: A1bA2 abA1 abA2 abA1 abA2 abA1A2, where A1 and A2 are lines repeated exactly which rhyme with the a lines.