Internal rhyme
In poetry, internal rhyme, or middle rhyme, is rhyme that occurs within a single line of verse, or between internal phrases across multiple lines. By contrast, rhyme between line endings is known as end rhyme.
Internal rhyme schemes can be denoted with spaces or commas between lines. For example, "ac,ac,ac" denotes a three-line poem with the same internal rhyme on each line, and the same end rhyme on each line (which does not rhyme with the internal rhyme).
Examples
Poetry
In the following limerick, each stressed syllable rhymes with another stressed syllable using one of three rhyme sets. Each rhyme set is indicated by a different highlight color. Note that the yellow rhyme set provides internal rhyme in lines 1, 2, and 5, and end rhymes in lines 3 and 4, but the blue set is entirely internal, and the pink is exclusively end rhymes.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" is filled with lines that include internal rhyme, such as "The guests are met, the feast is set"; "The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared"; and "It cracked and growled, and roared and howled". Internal rhymes were a trademark of 19th century English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, for instance, in "God's Grandeur":
Percy Dearmer (1867–1936) revised John Bunyan's (1628–1688) poem "To Be a Pilgrim" in 1906. It became a popular hymn when Charles Winfred Douglas (1867–1944) set it to music in 1917. Here are Dearmer's lyrics, with the internal rhymes in bold. Note that in the three quatrains, the internal rhymes are also echoed in the line rhymes (also in bold).
Popular music
In the comic operas that he wrote with Arthur Sullivan, W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) used internal rhymes in some of his song lyrics. For example, Bunthorne's solo aria from Patience begins:
Internal rhyme schemes were common in popular songs of the Swing Era. One illustration is the bridge from "Don't Fence Me In", which was written by Cole Porter for the 1944 film Hollywood Canteen:
Bob Dylan often used internal rhymes in his lyrics such as in "Subterranean Homesick Blues":
And "Like a Rolling Stone":
Other pop, rock, and rhythm and blues lyricists from the 1960s and the 1970s employed the technique more sparingly than Dylan such as Smokey Robinson in "The Tears of a Clown" ("In order to shield my pride, I've tried") and Carly Simon in "Anticipation" ("When I was thinking about how right tonight might be").
Rap and hip-hop
Internal rhyme is used extensively in rap and hip-hop music, and it sometimes then overlaps with assonance. The usage of internal rhyme in rap has increased over time, but can be found even in the earliest rap songs, such as the Sugarhill Gang's 1979 single, "Rapper's Delight":
Internal rhyme is used frequently by many different hip-hop artists, including Kool Moe Dee, Big Daddy Kane, Nas, and Rakim, as is demonstrated in Eric B. and Rakim's 1987 piece, "My Melody" from their debut album Paid In Full:
Another prominent hip-hop artist who uses complex internal rhymes is AZ, as is shown in "The Format":
Black Thought, a rapper from The Roots, uses internal rhymes in the song "Respond/React":
MF Doom uses almost every word as internal rhyme in this verse in his song, "Figaro" (rhymes are highlighted):
Kool Keith uses internal rhyme heavily in his song "3000" and effectively throws off the listener:
Bad Lip Reading uses internal rhyme in their comedic song “My Stick”.
