'Half rhyme', sometimes called 'slant', 'sprung' or 'near rhyme' is
consonance on the final consonants of the words involved. Many half rhymes are also
eye rhymes. It is widely used in Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and Icelandic
verse. Some examples are ''ill'' and ''shell'' and also ''dropped'' and ''wept''.
The first English poet to use half rhyme was
Henry Vaughan, but it was not until it was used in the works of
W. B. Yeats and
Gerard Manley Hopkins that half rhyme became popular among English-language poets. In the 20th century half-rhyme has been used widely by English poets. Often, as in most of Yeats's poems, it is mixed with other devices such as regular rhymes,
assonance, and
para-rhymes. In the following example the 'rhymes' are ''on''/''moon'' and ''bodies''/''ladies'':
:When have I last looked on
:The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies
:Of the dark leopards of the moon?
:All the wild witches, those most noble ladies,
:(Yeats, "Lines written in Dejection")
American poet
Emily Dickinson also used slant rhyme frequently in her work.
[1] In her poem "Hope is the thing with feathers" the slant rhyme appears in the second and fourth lines:
:Hope is the thing with feathers
:That perches in the 'soul',
:And sings the tune without the words,
:And never stops at 'all'.
References
1. http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/dickinson.html
Also See
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Perfect rhyme