Cross rhyme

Dust of Snow" by Robert Frost; an example of cross rhyme

by George J. Dance

Cross rhyme (also called Alternate rhyme or Interlocking rhyme) is a frequently encountered rhyme scheme in English-language verse.

Form

Cross rhyme is often found in poems composed of 4-line stanzas, or quatrains, but can be used in any stanza with an even number of lines.

Within each stanza (or each 4 lines of a stanza), alternating lines rhyme: A-B-A-B. Rhyming lines must have the same meter.

Examples

Cross rhyme is most commonly used in common meter. The 2 ways to distinguish common meter from ballad meter are the former's use of (1) regular meter and (2) cross rhyme.

Cross rhyme is used in the 3 quatrains of Shakespearean sonnets.

Other poems that use cross rhyme include:

1. She Walks in Beauty / Lord Byron
2. Reed-song / Helen Dudley
3. To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time / Robert Herrick
4. If-- / Rudyard Kipling
5. The Dark Hills / Edwin Arlington Robinson
6. A Crowded Trolley Car / Elinor Wylie

See also

• Glossary of poetry terms

External links

Examples

• Tag Archives: Cross Rhyme / Robert Frost and iambic dimeter
• Poems using cross rhyme

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