Internal rhyme is a rhyme in poetry that occurs within the same line of a single line of verse. The term is meant to distinguish it from the more traditional external rhyme, in which the rhyme occurs on the last syllable of the last word in two separate lines of poetry. Sometimes referred to as “middle rhyme,” internal rhyming may also occur when two words are rhymed in one line, and then rhymed with a third word in the middle of the next line.

Internal rhymimg can be used to heighten the effect of a poem and create a contrast to end rhyme. Unlike traditional external end rhymes, the internal rhyme can occur anywhere in the line that the poet thinks it will provide rhythm or emphasis. In Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London, Welsh poet Dylan Thomas used internal rhyming in the line “the grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother.” English poet Samuel Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner also contains examples of internal rhyming. “We were the first that ever burst/Into that silent sea.”