Masculine rhyme
A masculine rhyme is a rhyme that matches only one syllable, usually at the end of respective lines. Often the final syllable is stressed.
English
In English prosody, a masculine rhyme is a rhyme on a single stressed syllable at the end of a line of poetry. This term is interchangeable with single rhyme and is often used contrastingly with the terms "feminine rhyme" and "double rhyme".
In English-language poetry, especially serious verse, masculine rhymes comprise a majority of all rhymes. John Donne's poem "Lecture Upon the Shadow" is one of many that utilise exclusively masculine rhyme:
- Stand still, and I will read to thee
- A lecture, love, in Love's philosophy.
- These three hours that we have spent
- Walking here, two shadows went
- Along with us, which we ourselves produced.
- But now the sun is just above our head,
- We do those shadows tread,
- And to brave clearness all things are reduced.
French
In French verse, a masculine rhyme is one in which the final syllable is not a "silent" e, even if the word is feminine. In classical French poetry, two masculine rhymes cannot occur in succession.