Rhyme Scheme
A rhyme scheme is the pattern of end rhymes in a poem or song, written as letters: ABAB, AABB, ABCB. Paste any text below and the analyzer labels every line for you.
Rhyme scheme ABAC DEFG
ALate trains are rattling through the town,
Bthe platform lights are turning blue,
AI keep my collar buttoned down
Cand try to not keep missing you.
DThe kiosk sells the day-old bread,
Ethe pigeons circle, cold and slow,
FI think of every word you said
Gand still don’t know which way to go.
Letters are assigned in order: the first new end sound is A, the next is B, and any line whose last word rhymes with an earlier one reuses its letter. “near” and “slant” tags show looser matches.
Same idea, four schemes
A rhyme scheme isn’t decoration: it controls when the ear gets its payoff. Couplets resolve immediately. Alternate rhyme makes you wait one line. Enclosed rhyme delays the return for three. Ballad stanzas rhyme only once, which reads almost like speech.
Toggle the schemes to hear the same four-line scene rewritten each way. Read them out loud: the difference is obvious once you hear it.
AThe kettle clicks, the kitchen light is low,
Byou pull your coat on by the door,
AI never ask you why you have to go,
BI only count the steps you took before.
Alternate rhyme: the ear waits a line for each rhyme to land, which pulls you forward. The workhorse of pop verses and hymns.
Types of rhyme schemes
| Pattern | Name | What it does | Famous example |
|---|---|---|---|
| AABB | Couplets | Pairs of lines rhyme. Direct and musical. | Blake, “The Tyger” (Tyger Tyger, burning bright / In the forests of the night) |
| ABAB | Alternate | Every other line rhymes. | Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” |
| ABBA | Enclosed | Outer lines rhyme around an inner couplet. | Tennyson, “In Memoriam A.H.H.” |
| ABCB | Ballad | Only lines 2 and 4 rhyme. | Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (mostly) |
| AAAA | Monorhyme | Every line shares one rhyme. | Common in rap choruses and chants |
| AABBA | Limerick | Five lines, bouncing rhythm, a twist at the end. | Edward Lear, “A Book of Nonsense” |
| ABA BCB… | Terza rima | Middle line of each tercet sets the next rhyme. | Dante, “Divine Comedy”; Shelley, “Ode to the West Wind” |
| ABAB CDCD EFEF GG | Shakespearean sonnet | 14 lines, three quatrains and a couplet. | Shakespeare, Sonnet 18 |
| ABBAABBA CDECDE | Petrarchan sonnet | An octave then a sestet with a turn between. | Milton, “When I consider how my light is spent” |
| ABA ABA … ABAA | Villanelle | 19 lines, two refrains, only two rhyme sounds. | Dylan Thomas, “Do not go gentle into that good night” |
How to write a rhyme scheme
- Read the last word of line 1. Label it A.
- Move to line 2. If its last word rhymes with line 1, it’s also A; otherwise it’s B.
- Keep going: reuse a letter whenever a line rhymes with an earlier one, use the next letter when it’s a new sound.
- Separate stanzas with a space: ABAB CDCD. Refrains are sometimes written with capitals plus a number (A1, A2) in villanelles.
Rhyme schemes in songs
Songwriters use rhyme schemes to separate sections. A verse in ABCB feels relaxed and narrative; switching to AABB or monorhyme in the chorus tightens everything and signals “this is the hook.” Pat Pattison’s Writing Better Lyrics (Berklee) calls this matching structure to emotion: stable schemes for resolved feelings, unstable ones (odd line counts, unrhymed lines) for tension.
Hip-hop flips the focus from end rhymes to rhyme density: internal rhymes and multi-syllable rhymes stacked inside bars. The rap lyrics generator writes verses that way, and the rhyming dictionary has a multi-syllable tab for building your own.
Questions
What is a rhyme scheme?
A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the ends of lines in a poem or song, written with letters. The first end sound is A, the next new sound is B, and so on. A four-line stanza where lines 1 and 3 rhyme and lines 2 and 4 rhyme is ABAB.
How do you find the rhyme scheme of a poem?
Look at the last word of each line. Give the first one the letter A. For each following line, if its last word rhymes with an earlier line, reuse that letter; if not, use the next unused letter. The analyzer on this page does this automatically using word pronunciations.
What is the most common rhyme scheme in songs?
ABAB and ABCB dominate pop, rock and country verses, while choruses often switch to AABB or a single repeated rhyme sound (monorhyme) for punch.
What is the rhyme scheme of a sonnet?
A Shakespearean sonnet is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG: three alternating quatrains and a closing couplet. A Petrarchan sonnet opens with ABBAABBA and ends with a sestet such as CDECDE or CDCDCD.
Does a rhyme scheme count slant rhymes?
Poets and critics often do, especially in modern verse and lyrics. Turn slant rhymes on or off in the analyzer to see a strict and a loose reading of the same text.
What does X mean in a rhyme scheme?
Some writers mark a line that doesn’t rhyme with anything as X, for example XAXA for a ballad stanza. This analyzer gives such lines their own letter instead, so ABCB and XAXA describe the same pattern.