Internal rhyme is when a rhyme occurs within the same line of a single line of verse. It can be used to enhance the effect of a poem and create a contrast with the final rhyme. Internal rhyme can occur anywhere in the line and can be used multiple times in a stanza. Some poems are composed with an internal rhyme scheme. Modern poetry has become less prominent in using rhyme schemes and rhymes in general.
In poetry, internal rhyme is when a rhyme occurs within the same line of a single line of verse. The term is intended to distinguish it from the more traditional external rhyme, where the rhyme occurs on the last syllable of the last word in two separate lines of poetry. Sometimes referred to as “middle rhyme,” internal rhyme can also occur when two words rhyme in a line and then rhyme with a third word in the middle of the next line.
Internal rhyme can be used to enhance the effect of a poem and create a contrast with the final rhyme. Unlike traditional outer final rhymes, inner rhyme can occur anywhere in the line that the poet thinks will provide rhythm or emphasis. In Refusal to Mourn the Death, Fire, of a Child in London, the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas used internal rhyme in the line “the grains beyond age, his mother’s dark veins”. English poet Samuel Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner also contains examples of internal rhymes. “We were the first to be blown up/In that silent sea.”
The use of rhyme within a single verse can also be used multiple times in a stanza. When used in this way, it often occurs in alternating lines, separated by lines of external rhyme. An excerpt from the 19th century English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem The Cloud demonstrates this method of multiple internal rhymes and its rhythmic effects. “I am the child of Earth and Water/And the Baby of Heaven/I pass through the pores of oceans and coasts/I change but I cannot die.”
Some poems are composed with what might be called an internal rhyme scheme. Rhyming occurs in the middle and end of the first line, and then again in the middle of the next line. American poet Edgar Allen Poe’s The Crow used this particular type of internal rhyme. “Ah, I distinctly remember it was in gloomy December, / And every single dying ember spawned the ghost of him upon the floor.”
The Crow also contained heavy use of alliteration and symbolism. While the poem has had its critics, Poe’s poem remains one of the most popular in American literature. With the advent of modern poetry, rhyme schemes and rhymes in general have become less prominent in poetry. Many respected modern poets such as Dylan Thomas and American poet TS Eliot, however, used internal rhyme in their work.
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