In Shelley's "To a Skylark," what effects does the rhyme scheme have?

This is an interesting question, and one that will require some interpretation! All we can say for absolute certain is that the rhyme scheme in Shelley's "To a Skylark" is

• Consistent throughout each stanza


• In the pattern ABABB


• Only violated slightly a few times (like when Shelley rhymes "not" with "not" in the seventh stanza, or when "leaves" and "gives" are presented as rhymes in the eleventh stanza)

So if we want to know what the effects of that rhyme scheme are, we should read it out loud and see what happens.

When you do this, you notice that the poem is a lofty tribute to a skylark, a bird who flies so high that it can't even be seen; the speaker of the poem seems jealous of the freedom and joy that the bird must possess. And each stanza is like its own little painting of something in the natural world.

1. So, by employing that repetitive, consistent rhyme scheme in each self-contained little stanza, Shelley seems to express the music and joyful simplicity of his topic (the skylark in particular, and nature in general).

2. Reading the poem and all of its well-knit, quickly-resolved, repetitive rhymes might call to mind any number of repeated movements in nature: the beating of a bird's wings in flight, the rise and fall of ocean waves, the pounding of spring rains on grass, and so on.

3. The fact that so many of the rhymes are predictable may also help you speed your way through the poem, anticipating what the speaker is about to say, and therefore vicariously experience more of the thrilling, fast movement of the skylark. Let's look at the thirteenth stanza to see this in action:

"Teach us, Sprite or Bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine:

I have never heard

Praise of love or wine

That panted forth a flood of rapture so ______."

Did your mind automatically fill in the word "divine" right there before you even read the word? Probably! You already heard "thine" and "wine," and seeing the word "rapture" probably prompted you to think of "divine" before processing it. You feel like you're racing through the poem, like a skylark zipping across the sky.

Again, these are just one reader's ideas regarding potential effects that the rhyme scheme may have. More effects are always possible!