Terza Rima
Quick answer: Terza rima is an interlocking rhyme scheme of three-line stanzas, ABA BCB CDC, invented by Dante. See how the chain works and how to use it in English.
Terza rima is a verse form of interlinked tercets rhyming ABA BCB CDC DED and onward, each stanza's middle line seeding the rhymes of the next. A poem in terza rima usually closes with a single line or couplet rhyming with the middle line of the final tercet, tying off the chain. The name is Italian for third rhyme.
Dante invented the scheme for the Divine Comedy around 1308, and its forward pull is no accident: every stanza opens a rhyme that only the next stanza can close, so the reader is always leaning ahead, which suits a poem about a journey through the afterlife. Poets since have borrowed that momentum for any subject that travels: wind, walking, rivers, pursuit.
The poem
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Percy Bysshe Shelley, 'Ode to the West Wind' (1820)
How It Works
Each tercet is a link in a chain. The outer lines rhyme with each other, and the middle line introduces the sound the next tercet's outer lines must match. Because English is poorer in rhymes than Italian, English terza rima leans on slant rhyme, or accepts a lighter touch, to keep sentences natural across the chain.
A quick invented run: 'The road unspools beneath the cooling sky (A) / past barns that lean like tired congregations (B) / where swallows stitch the dusk, then multiply (A). / The next field waits with all its patient patience (B)...' The B sound has already committed the following stanza. That obligation is the engine.
Where You Will See It
Chaucer and Wyatt carried terza rima into English, but its most famous English monument is Shelley's 'Ode to the West Wind', five terza rima sonnets driven by the very forward motion the form supplies; its opening is quoted on this page. Robert Frost's night-walk poem 'Acquainted with the Night' runs the chain through a fourteen-line frame, and Derek Walcott's book-length Omeros uses a loosened terza rima across an entire Caribbean epic. Translators of Dante argue endlessly about whether to attempt the scheme in English at all, which tells you how demanding it is.
How to Use It in Your Own Poems
Give the poem somewhere to go. Terza rima wastes its momentum on static description, so build it around a walk, a chase, a storm, an argument gaining speed. Accept slant rhymes early and often, and plan your exit: decide whether a final couplet, a single line, or a tercet folded into a sonnet shape will close the chain. Writing even twelve lines of it is superb training for rhyming under pressure, and a controlled terza rima entry reads as quiet mastery to anyone scoring structure, as monthly contest judges at Writory do.
What poets can take from this
- Choose middle-line rhyme sounds with plenty of English words, because the next stanza depends on them.
- Use slant rhyme without apology; even accomplished English terza rima relies on it.
- Build the poem around motion so the form's forward pull serves the content.
- Decide your ending strategy, couplet or single line, before you are ten stanzas deep.
- Read a canto of Dante in translation alongside Shelley's ode to hear the chain at two speeds.
Try it yourself
Write a terza rima poem of at least five tercets and a closing line about following someone through a crowd. Let each stanza close the distance a little.
Questions
How does a terza rima poem end?
Most commonly with a single line or a couplet that rhymes with the middle line of the last tercet, closing the open rhyme. Dante ended each canto on a single line this way.
Is terza rima hard to write in English?
Harder than in Italian, which is rich in rhymes, but entirely possible. English poets manage it with slant rhyme, flexible syntax and by keeping sentences running across stanza breaks.
What is a terza rima sonnet?
A fourteen-line poem built from four interlocked tercets and a couplet, rhyming ABA BCB CDC DED EE. Shelley's 'Ode to the West Wind' is composed of five of them.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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