TYPES OF RHYME SCEME

Alternate rhyme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH...

Ballade: Three stanzas of "ABABBCBC" followed by "BCBC".
Boy Named Sue: A,A,B,C,C,(B, or infrequently D).
Chant royal: Five stanzas of "ababccddedE" followed by either "ddedE" or "ccddedE". (The capital
letters indicate a line repeated verbatim.)
Cinquain: "A,B,A,B,B"
Clerihew: "A,A,B,B"
Couplet: "A,A", but usually occurs as "A,A, B,B C,C D,D ..."
McCarron Couplet: "AABBABCCDDCDEEFFEF" a contemporary take on a classic rhyming pattern,
introduced by the academic James McCarron.
Creative Verse: A poem with the rhyme scheme of "ABCD ACDC ACDC", followed with as many
repetitions of ACDC as desired.
Enclosed rhyme (or enclosing rhyme): "ABBA"
"Fire and Ice" stanza: "ABAABCBCB" as used in Robert Frost's poem "Fire and Ice"
Keatsian Ode: "ABABCDECDE" used in Keat's Ode on Indolence, Ode on a Grecian Urn, and Ode to a
Nightingale.
Limerick: "AABBA"
Monorhyme: "A,A,A,A,A...", an identical rhyme on every line, common in Latin and Arabic
Ottava rima: "A,B,A,B,A,B,C,C"
The Raven stanza: "ABCBBB", or "AA,B,CC,CB,B,B" when accounting for internal rhyme, as used
by Edgar Allan Poe in "The Raven"
Rhyme royal: "ABABBCC"
Rondeau: "ABaAabAB"
Rondelet: "AbAabbA"
Rubaiyat: "AABA"
Scottish stanza: "AAABAB", as used by Robert Burns in works such as "To a Mouse"
Simple 4-line: "ABCB"
Sonnet ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
Petrarchan sonnet: "ABBA ABBA CDE CDE" or "ABBA ABBA CDC DCD"
Shakespearean sonnet: "ABAB CDCD EFEF GG"
Spenserian sonnet: "ABAB BCBC CDCD EE"
Onegin stanzas: "aBaBccDDeFFeGG" with the lowercase letters representing feminine rhymes and
the uppercase representing masculine rhymes, written in iambic tetrameter
Sestina: ABCDEF FAEBDC CFDABE ECBFAD DEACFB BDFECA, the seventh stanza is a tercet where line 1
has A in it but ends with D, line 2 has B in it but ends with E, line 3 has C in it but ends with F
Spenserian stanza: "ABABBCBCCDCDEE"
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening form: "AABA BBCB CCDC DDDD" a modified Ruba'i stanza used
by Robert Frost for the eponymous poem.
Tanaga: traditional Tagalog tanaga is "AAAA"
Terza rima: "ABA BCB CDC ...", ending on "YZY Z", "YZY ZZ", or "YZY ZYZ".
Triplet: "AAA", often repeating like the couplet.
The Road Not Taken stanza: "ABAAB" as used in Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken, and in Glde over
Danmark by Poul Martin Mller (English translation here).
Villanelle: A1bA2 abA1 abA2 abA1 abA2 abA1A2, where A1 and A2 are lines repeated exactly which
rhyme with the a lines.

Examples:
LIMERICK
There once was a young lady named bright

Whose speed was much faster than light

She set out one day
In a relative way
And returned on the previous night.
- Anonymous

CLERIHEW
George the Third
Ought never to have occurred.
One can only wonder
At so grotesque a blunder.
MONORYHME
Lifting her arms to soap her hair
Her pretty breasts respond and there
The movement of that buoyant pair
Is like a spell to make me swear
Twenty odd years have turned to air;
Now shes the girl I didnt dare
Approach, ask out, much less declare
My love to, mired in young despair.
Childbearing, rows, domestic care
All the prosaic wear and tear
That constitute the life we share
Slip from her beautiful and bare
Bright body as, made half aware
Of my quick, surreptitious stare,
She wrings the water from her hair
And turning smiles to see me there.
SIMPLE 4-LINE
When two bodies meet in space.
They pass or they collide.
But I suspect the darkness smiles.
When say reveal where an orbit hides.
RONDELET
Such happiness
Has crept up on me without sound,
Such happiness
Has touched my heart with soft caress;
All lifes sharp corners have gone round,
Since Ive met you, my friend, Ive found
Such happiness.