"On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye, ..."See in text(Text of the Poem)
“The Lady of Shalott” employs an AAAABCCCB rhyme scheme. Rhyme is a common poetic technique and is built into the structure of many poetic forms. It shapes the way a poem is read, since the rhyming words have a natural tendency to create pauses and emphasize the structure of the stanza. The rhymes in “The Lady of Shalott” are mostly perfect rhymes, where the end sounds of the rhyming words are identical. For example, “lie,” “rye,” “sky,” and “by” all share the same pronunciation. An example of an imperfect rhyme, sometimes called a slant rhyme, can be found in the second stanza, where “ever” is rhymed with “quiver,” “shiver,” and “river.” Because the vowel sounds differ, the rhyme is imperfect.
