How to Find the Rhyme Scheme of a Poem
Quick answer: How to find the rhyme scheme of a poem: label each line's end sound with a letter, giving matching sounds the same letter, to reveal patterns like ABAB.
To find the rhyme scheme of a poem, look at the final sound of each line and assign it a letter: the first end sound is A, the next new sound is B, and any line that rhymes with an earlier one repeats that line's letter. A quatrain whose first and third lines rhyme, and second and fourth, is ABAB.
Work by sound, not spelling. 'Love' and 'move' look like rhymes and are not; 'through' and 'blue' do not look like rhymes and are. Say the line endings aloud and trust your ear over your eye.
The lettering method in action
Take Christina Rossetti's lines: 'Remember me when I am gone away, / Gone far away into the silent land; / When you can no more hold me by the hand, / Nor half turn to go yet turning stay.' The end sounds are away, land, hand, stay: A, B, B, A. That enclosed pattern, ABBA, is the signature of the Petrarchan sonnet's octave, and noticing it tells you what tradition the poem is working in.
Continue letter by letter through the whole poem, starting fresh letters only for genuinely new sounds. Common results you will meet: AABB (couplets), ABAB (alternating or cross rhyme), ABBA (enclosed), and the sonnet schemes, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG for the Shakespearean form.
The rhymes that do not behave
Poets since Dickinson have leaned on slant rhyme: pairs that almost chime, like 'soul' and 'all', or 'room' and 'storm'. Mark these with the same letter but note them as slant or half rhyme, because the imperfection is expressive; a slant rhyme often lands where the poem's certainty falters. Eye rhymes ('cough' and 'bough') match on the page only, and internal rhymes happen mid line, outside the scheme entirely.
Also watch for identical rhyme, a word rhymed with itself, and for refrains, whole repeated lines, which forms like the villanelle build into their schemes. If a poem has no end rhyme at all, say so plainly: unrhymed is a scheme choice too, and blank verse and free verse make it for different reasons.
What to do with the scheme once you have it
A rhyme scheme is a finding, not a conclusion. The analytical move is to connect the pattern to the poem's behaviour: couplets close ideas neatly, alternating rhyme pulls the reader forward, enclosed rhyme folds a stanza in on itself like a held thought. Above all, watch for the break: if a poem rhymes ABAB for four stanzas and then fails to rhyme exactly where the speaker's composure fails, that is not sloppiness, it is craft, and it belongs in your essay.
The same logic applies when you write. Choose a scheme for what it does, keep it honest for as long as the poem is composed, and break it only on purpose.
What poets can take from this
- Say the line endings aloud; rhyme lives in sound, never spelling.
- Assign letters in order of appearance and reuse them for repeated sounds.
- Label slant rhymes with the same letter plus a note; the near miss is meaningful.
- Name the form the scheme implies: couplets, cross rhyme, sonnet, villanelle.
- Treat any break in an established scheme as a deliberate signal.
- Remember unrhymed is also an answer; blank verse and free verse choose it.
Try it yourself
Write three quatrains in strict ABAB about a promise being kept, then a final quatrain about the promise breaking, in which the rhyme scheme quietly breaks with it.
Questions
What is the most common rhyme scheme?
Couplets (AABB) and alternating rhyme (ABAB) are the most common in English verse. Ballads typically use ABCB, where only the second and fourth lines rhyme.
Do all poems have a rhyme scheme?
No. Blank verse is metrical but unrhymed, and free verse abandons both fixed meter and rhyme. In analysis, stating that a poem is unrhymed, and considering why, is a legitimate observation.
What is the rhyme scheme of a sonnet?
The Shakespearean sonnet runs ABAB CDCD EFEF GG; the Petrarchan runs ABBAABBA followed by a sestet, commonly CDECDE or CDCDCD. The scheme tells you where the poem's turn is likely to fall.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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