ABAB Rhyme Scheme Overview & Examples | What is ABAB Rhyme Scheme? – Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

ABAB Rhyme Scheme Examples

One simple ABAB poem that most people are familiar with is the nursery rhyme “Pease Porridge Hot.”

“Pease porridge hot

Pease porridge cold

Pease porridge in the pot

Nine days old.”

In this poem, the first and third line contain the rhymes hot and pot and would be labeled rhyme A. The second and forth lines, ending with cold and old, would be labeled rhyme B.

• Another more sophisticated example of an ABAB poem is Robert Frost’s “Neither Out Far Nor in Deep.”

“The people along the sand

All turn and look one way.

They turn their back on the land.

They look at the sea all day.

As long as it takes to pass

A ship keeps raising its hull;

The wetter ground like glass

Reflects a standing gull

The land may vary more;

But wherever the truth may be-

The water comes ashore,

And the people look at the sea.

They cannot look out far.

They cannot look in deep.

But when was that ever a bar

To any watch they keep?”

In this poem, each quatrain, or stanza with four lines, follows an ABAB rhyme pattern. When looked at as a whole, the rhyme scheme is as follows:

ABAB (Rhyme A is sand and land. Rhyme B is way and day.)

CDCD (Rhyme C is pass and glass. Rhyme D is hull and gull.)

EFEF (Rhyme E is more and ashore. Rhyme F is be and sea.)

GHGH (Rhyme G is far and bar. Rhyme H is deep and keep.)

In this poem, the words rhyme perfectly. This is not always the case. Sometimes a poem will have slant rhymes or imperfect rhymes. This is when the words are similar but do not match perfectly.

Robert Frost wrote some ABAB poems.

• An example of an ABAB poem that contains a slant rhyme is Shakespeare’s “Then Hate Me When Thou Wilt.”

“If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,

When other pretty griefs have done their spite,

But in the onset come; so I shall taste

At first the very worst of fortune’s might.”

The sonnet continues with another twelve lines, but in this quatrain we can see an ABAB rhyme scheme with an imperfect rhyme.

Rhyme A is last and taste. (This is not a perfect rhyme, but a slant rhyme.)

Rhyme B is spite and might.

Writers may purposefully write in slant rhymes. Other times they may occur as a result of pronunciation changes over time.

ABAB Rhyme Scheme in Shakespearean Sonnets

One type of poem that has an ABAB rhyme scheme is the Shakespearean sonnet.

A Shakespearean sonnet contains three quatrains (three sets of four lines) and an ending couplet (two lines). Each quatrain has an ABAB rhyme scheme. The two lines in the couplet rhyme. The rhyme scheme, then, can be labeled as follows:

ABAB

CDCD

EFEF

GG

One such example is Sonnet 18, “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day.”

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”

Rhyme A is day and May.

Rhyme B is temperate and date.

Rhyme C is shines and declines.

Rhyme D is dimmed and untrimmed.

Rhyme E is fade and shade.

Rhyme F is ow’st and grow’st.

Rhyme G is see and thee.

Note that some rhymes in older texts will not rhyme perfectly. As mentioned above, this is often due to changes in pronunciation.

Lesson Summary

A rhyme scheme is the organization of rhyming words in a poem. In a poem with an ABAB rhyme scheme every other line rhymes. Often a new rhyme scheme is created in each new quatrain or stanza of four lines. There are examples of ABAB poems throughout history. One well-known type of ABAB poem is the Shakespearean sonnet which is made up of three quatrains, each with their own ABAB scheme, and an ending couplet with its own rhyme. Therefore, a Shakespearean sonnet will have a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Sometimes, older poems will not have clearly rhyming words; this is generally because of pronunciation changes that occur over time. Not all poems are organized by rhyme scheme; Haikus, for example, are organized by syllables, and free verse or open form can follow any format the poet wishes.