Rhyme's Reason

A Guide to English Verse, written in verse

The weakest way in which two words can chime
Is with the most expected kind of rhyme--
(If it's the only rhyme you can write,
A homonym will never sound quite right.)
A rhyme is stronger when the final words
Seem less alike than pairs of mated birds.
When meaning makes a gap which sound can span, it's
As if the rhyme words came from different planets;
Or when a final verb, perhaps, will reach
Out to rhyme with some different part of speech;
Or when a word spelled in one way, like "off,"
Rhymes strictly, with a sort of visual cough
Of surprise; or when a common word like "love"
Which rhymed in Shakespeare's time with "move" and "prove"
Ends up today a sight-rhyme, as above...