What Is an ABAB Rhyme Scheme?
Quick answer: An ABAB rhyme scheme is alternating rhyme: in a four-line stanza, lines 1 and 3 share one end sound and lines 2 and 4 share another. Examples and uses inside.
An ABAB rhyme scheme is alternating rhyme: in a four-line stanza, the first and third lines end on one rhyming sound (A), and the second and fourth lines end on a different rhyming sound (B). The letters are just labels assigned in order of appearance, so ABAB simply means the two rhyme sounds take turns, line by line.
It is probably the most used quatrain scheme in English poetry, the backbone of hymns, Shakespeare's sonnets (three ABAB-style quatrains before the couplet, technically ABAB CDCD EFEF GG), Thomas Gray's 'Elegy', and thousands of song verses. Its popularity is earned: the one-line gap between each rhyme and its partner gives music without the thump of back-to-back couplets.
Seeing it on the page
Here is the pattern in a stanza from Blake's 'London' (1794): 'I wander thro' each charter'd street, (A) / Near where the charter'd Thames does flow, (B) / And mark in every face I meet (A) / Marks of weakness, marks of woe. (B)' Street rhymes with meet, flow rhymes with woe, and the alternation pulls you through the stanza like left-right footsteps.
The labelling method works for any poem: give the first end sound the letter A, the next new sound B, the next C, and reuse a letter whenever a sound returns. A limerick is AABBA; a ballad stanza is ABCB, where C marks a line that rhymes with nothing.
Why poets reach for ABAB
The alternating pattern balances expectation and delay. A couplet pays its rhyme immediately, which is punchy but can turn nursery-rhyme fast. ABAB makes you wait exactly one line, long enough for the chime to feel like confirmation rather than a drumbeat, short enough that the ear never loses the thread. That makes it the natural scheme for sustained argument, narrative and reflection.
It also interlocks the stanza. Because line three must reach back to line one, the quatrain becomes a woven unit rather than two stacked couplets, and the syntax tends to stretch across all four lines. Poets exploit that: a sentence suspended over an ABAB quatrain has a shape, a rise and resolution, that prose cannot fake.
Using it without sounding mechanical
Three craft habits keep ABAB fresh. First, vary where sentences end: if every sentence closes at line four of every stanza, the poem marches. Let a sentence spill into the next stanza occasionally. Second, mix full rhyme with slant rhyme (street/heat is full; street/quiet is slant) so the scheme whispers instead of shouts. Third, put your strongest, most concrete words at line ends, since rhyme spotlights them; rhyming on 'the' level words like 'is' or 'went' wastes the position.
A worked micro-example with slant rhyme softening the scheme: 'My sister kept her coins in jars (A) / labelled by year in fading pen, (B) / as if the future came in parts (A, slant) / she could afford to count again. (B)' The pattern holds, but nothing clangs.
What poets can take from this
- Remember the letters are labels in order of appearance: same letter, same end sound.
- Use ABAB when you want steady music for argument or narrative without couplet bounce.
- Mix in slant rhymes to stop the alternation becoming a metronome.
- Place strong nouns and verbs at line ends, where the rhyme spotlights them.
- Let some sentences cross stanza boundaries so the grammar and the scheme do not always agree.
- Check each rhyme word earns its place in the sentence; if the line bends to reach it, rewrite.
Try it yourself
Write three ABAB quatrains about a routine journey you make weekly. Use full rhyme in the first stanza, slant rhyme in the second, and your choice in the third, then compare the temperature of each.
Questions
What is the difference between ABAB and AABB?
ABAB alternates its rhymes (lines 1 and 3 rhyme, lines 2 and 4 rhyme), while AABB pairs them as couplets (1 with 2, 3 with 4). ABAB reads as woven and steady; AABB reads as punchy and epigrammatic.
Is ABAB the same as a Shakespearean sonnet's rhyme scheme?
It is the building block. A Shakespearean sonnet runs ABAB CDCD EFEF GG: three alternating quatrains, each with fresh rhyme sounds, capped by a couplet.
Can ABAB use slant rhymes?
Yes, freely. The scheme only requires that lines 1 and 3, and lines 2 and 4, share an end sound, and near-matches like 'stone/gone' count. Emily Dickinson built much of her work on exactly that looseness.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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