Internal Rhyme
Quick answer: Internal rhyme is rhyme that occurs inside a line of poetry rather than only at line ends. See how it works, famous examples, and ways to use it well.
Internal rhyme is rhyme that happens within a line of verse rather than only at its end: a word in the middle of a line chimes with the line's final word, or with a word inside the same or a neighbouring line. Where end rhyme marks the poem's structure, internal rhyme threads music through its body, often so smoothly that readers feel the effect before they spot the cause.
Poets use it to speed a line up, to bind phrases together, or to make language feel charged and patterned without committing to a formal scheme. It is also the engine room of modern rap and spoken word, where dense internal rhyming is prized as technical skill in itself.
The poem
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
Edgar Allan Poe, 'The Raven' (1845)
How It Works
The commonest pattern places one rhyme at the caesura and its partner at the line end. An invented example: 'The rain came down on the town like a verdict read aloud.' 'Down' and 'town' chime mid-line, tightening the phrase and pushing the rhythm forward. Because the echo arrives sooner than an end rhyme would, the line feels quicker and more insistent.
Internal rhyme can also link across lines, a mid-line word in one line rhyming with a mid-line word in the next, which stitches lines together without the formality of a scheme. Used thickly it creates incantation; used sparingly it gives a single line a quiet gleam.
Where You Will See It
Edgar Allan Poe is the classroom example: 'The Raven' rhymes 'dreary' with 'weary' inside its very first line, and keeps that mid-line chime ringing through the poem like a bell in fog. Gerard Manley Hopkins packed lines with internal echoes as part of his sprung music. Coleridge uses it through 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', where breezes blow and furrows follow within single lines.
Today the richest laboratory is hip-hop: artists build multisyllabic internal rhymes across entire verses, and studying a skilled lyricist's rhyme placement will teach a page poet more about the device than most textbooks.
How to Use It in Your Own Poems
Start small: take a finished free verse draft and revise one or two lines so a mid-line word echoes the line's end. You gain music without adding a scheme. In metrical work, internal rhyme is a way to raise intensity at a key moment, the sonic equivalent of italics.
Beware saturation. When every line jingles internally, the poem tips into pastiche. Writory judges reading for language reward sound that supports feeling, so place internal rhymes where the emotion genuinely peaks.
Poem Example
Poe's opening to 'The Raven' (1845) remains the cleanest demonstration of a mid-line rhyme preparing the end rhyme.
What poets can take from this
- Place one rhyme at the natural pause and one at the line end for the classic effect.
- Use internal rhyme at emotional peaks rather than evenly throughout.
- Slant internal rhymes are subtler than full ones; try both and listen.
- Study a rap verse you admire, marking every rhyme sound with a highlighter to see placement.
- If a line feels flat in revision, look for one word you can swap to create a mid-line echo.
Try it yourself
Write a poem about a storm arriving, 10 to 14 lines, with no end rhyme at all but at least five internal rhymes. Let the internal chimes cluster as the storm peaks and thin out as it passes.
Questions
What is the difference between internal rhyme and assonance?
Assonance repeats only vowel sounds ('deep green sea'), while internal rhyme matches vowel and following consonants together ('down' and 'town') inside the line. Internal rhyme is the fuller, more audible echo.
Does internal rhyme count in a rhyme scheme?
No. Rhyme schemes map end rhymes only. Internal rhymes are extra music, free to appear anywhere without changing the poem's ABAB notation.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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