enclosed rhyme

poetry
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Also known as: enclosing rhyme
Also called:
enclosing rhyme
Related Topics:
rhyme
introverted quatrain

enclosed rhyme, in poetry, the rhyming pattern abba found in certain quatrains, such as the first verse of Matthew Arnold’s “Shakespeare”:

Others abide our question. Thou art free.
We ask and ask—thou smilest and art still,
Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill,
Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,…