I was just reading through one of Adam Wood's excellent hymn texts, and I was enjoying, among other things, the ABAB rhyme scheme.
English is so rhyme-poor that every good English rhyme brings delight.
And I was thinking that one of the pleasures of an ABAB scheme is how long one has to wait for the rhyme to pay off. It isn't the immediate closing-off of the rhyme that you get with a couplet. Instead there's a delayed gratification, with the added complexity of a completed rhyme of line 3 just before the completed rhyme of line 4. A double delight.
English is so rhyme-poor that every good English rhyme brings delight.
And I was thinking that one of the pleasures of an ABAB scheme is how long one has to wait for the rhyme to pay off. It isn't the immediate closing-off of the rhyme that you get with a couplet. Instead there's a delayed gratification, with the added complexity of a completed rhyme of line 3 just before the completed rhyme of line 4. A double delight.