Rhyme scheme: definition, types and examples (poems and songs)

A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the ends of lines in a poem or song. You write it with letters: lines that rhyme get the same letter, so AABB means lines one and two rhyme, then lines three and four rhyme. The most common rhyme schemes are AABB, ABAB, ABBA and ABCB.

You may also see it called a rhyme pattern or rhyming pattern. They mean the same thing.

This guide covers how to find a rhyme scheme, every common type with an example, and how songwriters and rappers use them.

How to find a rhyme scheme

1. Look at the last word of each line.
2. Give the first line the letter A.
3. If the next line rhymes with it, it’s also A. If it doesn’t, it’s B.
4. Keep going. Each new ending sound gets the next letter, and a sound you’ve heard before reuses its letter.

Here’s a four-line example:

I left the porch light on for you (A) I told myself you’d come around (B) The coffee’s cold, the sky is blue (A) And still I’m listening for the sound (B)

You rhymes with blue, and around rhymes with sound, so the rhyme scheme is ABAB.

A few rules help with longer pieces:

• Listen, don’t read. Rhyme is about sound, not spelling. Blue and through rhyme. Love and move don’t.
• Start again in each new stanza or leave the letters running. Both are accepted. A poem written in ABAB stanzas usually brings in new rhyme sounds each time, so you can write it as ABAB ABAB or as ABAB CDCD.
• X marks a line that rhymes with nothing. Some books write ABCB as XAXA. It’s the same pattern.

To label your own verse automatically, paste it into our rhyme scheme checker.

Types of rhyme schemes

These are the patterns you’ll meet most often. Each one is explained with an example below.

Rhyme scheme	Name	Where you’ll find it
AABB	Couplets	Nursery rhymes, pop, rap verses
ABAB	Alternate rhyme	Hymns, sonnets, pop and R&B verses
ABBA	Enclosed rhyme	Petrarchan sonnets, Tennyson
ABCB	Ballad stanza	Folk ballads, country, pop verses
AAAA	Monorhyme	Rap verses, chants
AABA	Rubaiyat stanza	Robert Frost, the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
AABBA	Limerick	Comic verse
ABA BCB CDC	Terza rima	Dante, Shelley
ABAB CDCD EFEF GG	Shakespearean sonnet	English sonnets
ABBAABBA CDECDE	Petrarchan sonnet	Italian sonnets
ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA	Villanelle	Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop
None	Free verse, blank verse	Modern poetry, spoken word

Rhyme scheme examples

AABB (couplets)

Pairs of lines rhyme. It’s the easiest pattern to hear, which is why children’s songs use it:

Twinkle, twinkle, little star, (A) How I wonder what you are! (A) Up above the world so high, (B) Like a diamond in the sky. (B)

In songs, AABB feels direct and punchy. Each rhyme lands quickly, so it suits fast verses and simple, confident statements. Two lines that rhyme like this are called a rhyming couplet.

ABAB (alternate rhyme)

Line one rhymes with line three, and line two rhymes with line four. Shakespeare opens Sonnet 18 this way:

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (A) Thou art more lovely and more temperate: (B) Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, (A) And summer’s lease hath all too short a date; (B)

In Shakespeare’s time, temperate and date sounded closer than they do today.

The hymn “Amazing Grace” uses the same pattern:

Amazing grace! how sweet the sound, (A) That saved a wretch like me! (B) I once was lost, but now am found, (A) Was blind, but now I see. (B)

Because you wait one extra line for each rhyme, ABAB flows more than AABB and feels closer to storytelling.

ABBA (enclosed rhyme)

The outer lines rhyme with each other and wrap around a rhyming pair in the middle. Tennyson wrote all of “In Memoriam” in it:

I hold it true, whate’er befall; (A) I feel it, when I sorrow most; (B) ’Tis better to have loved and lost (B) Than never to have loved at all. (A)

The first rhyme hangs open for three lines, so the last line feels like a door closing. It’s rare in songs, which makes it a good way to stand out in a bridge.

ABCB (ballad stanza)

Only lines two and four rhyme. Lines one and three are free. Emily Dickinson used it constantly:

Hope is the thing with feathers (A) That perches in the soul, (B) And sings the tune without the words, (C) And never stops at all, (B)

Notice that soul and all are a slant rhyme, not a perfect one. They still share a letter.

ABCB is the easiest scheme to write in, because you only need one rhyme every four lines. That leaves room to say exactly what you mean, and it’s why so many folk, country and pop verses use it.

AAAA (monorhyme)

Every line ends on the same sound:

Started on the corner with a dream and a plan (A) Mama told me “patience”, now I finally understand (A) Every loss a lesson, every lesson made a man (A) Now I’m writing out the future with a pen in my hand (A)

Monorhyme builds momentum. It’s the base of many rap verses, where one sound can run for four, eight or more bars.

AABA

Three lines rhyme and the third one breaks away. Robert Frost used it in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”:

Whose woods these are I think I know. (A) His house is in the village though; (A) He will not see me stopping here (B) To watch his woods fill up with snow. (A)

Frost then links the stanzas: the odd line out becomes the main rhyme of the next stanza. The whole poem runs AABA BBCB CCDC DDDD.

AABBA (limerick)

Five lines: two long, two short, one long. Edward Lear made the form famous:

There was an Old Man with a beard, (A) Who said, “It is just as I feared! (A) Two Owls and a Hen, (B) Four Larks and a Wren, (B) Have all built their nests in my beard!” (A)

ABAAB and other five-line patterns

Not every poem uses four-line stanzas. Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” is written in five-line stanzas that rhyme ABAAB:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, (A) And sorry I could not travel both (B) And be one traveler, long I stood (A) And looked down one as far as I could (A) To where it bent in the undergrowth; (B)

Sonnet rhyme schemes

A sonnet has 14 lines, and the rhyme scheme tells you which kind it is:

• Shakespearean (English) sonnet: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Three four-line sections, then a closing couplet.
• Petrarchan (Italian) sonnet: ABBAABBA for the first eight lines, then six lines in a pattern such as CDECDE or CDCDCD.
• Spenserian sonnet: ABAB BCBC CDCD EE. Each section borrows a rhyme from the one before.

Terza rima and villanelle

• Terza rima uses three-line stanzas that interlock: ABA BCB CDC. The middle line of each stanza sets up the rhyme for the next one.
• A villanelle has 19 lines built on only two rhyme sounds: five stanzas of ABA, then a final ABAA. Two whole lines also repeat through the poem as refrains.

No rhyme scheme

Poems and songs don’t have to rhyme. Free verse has no fixed rhyme or meter. Blank verse has a steady meter but no rhyme. In songs, an unrhymed verse can sound honest and conversational, as long as the rhythm holds it together.

Rhyme schemes in songs

Songs use the same patterns as poems, with a few habits of their own.

Each section can have its own scheme. A verse in ABCB followed by a chorus in AABB is a classic move. The verse sounds like talking, and the chorus sounds tighter and easier to sing back. See our guides on writing a verse and writing a chorus for more on how the two sections differ.

Slant rhymes count. Home and phone, or time and mine, get the same letter. When words are sung, the ear accepts a close match. Our slant rhymes guide has examples for the most common song words.

Repeated lines aren’t new rhymes. If a chorus ends every line with the same title phrase, that’s repetition doing the work, and you can label it as one letter.

Here is ABCB in a song verse:

I saw you at the station (A) With somebody new (B) I didn’t wave or call your name (C) I just stood there missing you (B)

And AABB, for a punchier feel:

We drove all night with the windows down (A) Leaving all our worries in the last town (A) Your hand on mine and the radio on (B) We didn’t stop until the dark was gone (B)

Rhyme schemes in rap

Rap counts in bars rather than lines, and the rhyme scheme describes where the rhymes fall across those bars.

• Couplets (AABB). Two bars rhyme, then two new bars rhyme. This is the classic starting point.
• Rhyme chains (AAAA and longer). One sound carries four, eight or sixteen bars, then switches. The switch resets the listener’s ear and makes the next section feel new.
• Multisyllabic schemes. The rhyme isn’t one syllable but two, three or more: fading out and waiting now. See multisyllabic rhymes.
• Internal rhymes. Extra rhymes land in the middle of the bar as well as the end. They don’t change the letters, but they make a simple AABB sound far more complex. See internal rhyme.

A good rap verse usually mixes these: a chain to build speed, a switch on the bar that matters, and internal rhymes to fill the space between.

Types of rhyme inside a scheme

The scheme tells you where the rhymes sit. It doesn’t say how close the sounds are. These are the kinds of rhyme you can put in each slot:

• Perfect rhymes match the stressed vowel and everything after it: night and light, tree and free.
• Slant rhymes, also called near rhymes, match only part of the sound: home and phone, heart and dark. When only the vowel matches, it’s called assonance.
• Multisyllabic rhymes match two or more syllables in a row: fading out and waiting now.
• End rhymes fall at the end of the line. These are the ones a rhyme scheme counts.
• Internal rhymes fall inside the line: cold night, hold tight.

Why rhyme schemes matter

• Musicality. Rhyme gives lines a sense of return that the ear enjoys.
• Emphasis. Words in rhyme positions get extra weight, so put your important words there.
• Memory. Rhyme makes lines easier to remember, which is why choruses and nursery rhymes lean on it.
• Structure. A steady scheme tells the listener where a section starts and ends.
• Contrast. Changing the scheme between sections makes the new section feel like an arrival.

How to choose a rhyme scheme

1. Match the energy. AABB and rhyme chains feel punchy and fast. ABAB and ABCB feel more flowing and conversational.
2. Contrast your sections. If the verse is ABAB, try AABB or a monorhyme in the chorus.
3. Use ABCB when meaning matters most. Fewer required rhymes means fewer forced lines.
4. Break the pattern on purpose. Skipping an expected rhyme at a key moment can make a line hit harder.
5. Check what you actually wrote. It’s easy to think you’re writing ABAB and drift into something else. Label your verse by hand, or run it through the rhyme scheme checker.

When one slot in your scheme won’t rhyme, our guide on rhymer’s block has quick fixes, and the rhyme finder shows perfect, slant and multisyllabic options sorted by syllable count.

Practice exercise

Take one idea, like “waiting for a text that never comes”, and write it four times: as AABB, as ABAB, as ABCB and as a four-bar rhyme chain. Read each version out loud.

You’ll hear how much the pattern changes the mood, even with the same story. The AABB version will probably feel the most urgent, while the ABCB version will sound the most like someone talking. Keep the one that fits the song you want to write.

Building schemes in Lyric Studio

In Lyric Studio you can select any word at the end of a line to see perfect, slant and multisyllabic rhymes with syllable counts, which makes it quicker to fill a scheme without forcing lines. For more on writing in rhyme quickly, see how to make rhymes faster.