Say “the tide is full, the moon lies fair” out loud and listen to how the line rings before you’ve even thought about what it means.
That ringing is an assonance in poetry, the repetition of the same vowel sound in words that sit close together, here, the long i in “tide” and “lies” from Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach.”
Because the ear tracks sound while the eye tracks spelling, assonance is easier to hear than to see on the page.
Below, you’ll find three classic examples with line-by-line breakdowns, short verses that show the effect in miniature, the main types of assonance, and a five-step method for catching it in any poem.
Assonance is one of the sound tools covered in the elements of poetry, and learning to hear it is a quick way to read every other poem more closely.
What Is Assonance in Poetry?
Assonance is the repetition of a vowel sound in nearby words, without repeating the consonants around it.
The matching sound can fall on a stressed or unstressed syllable and at the start, middle, or end of a word.
Only the vowel has to match, so “sail” and “rain” echo each other while “sad” and “rain” do not.
The word comes from the Latin assonare, which Edward Hirsch’s A Poet’s Glossary, reprinted in the Poets.org glossary entry on assonance, translates as “to answer with the same sound.”
Hirsch adds that assonance came before rhyme in early Old French, Provençal, and Spanish verse, where it bound lines together until end rhyme took over, and that poets have kept it as a quieter, unsystematic echo inside their lines.
That history explains why assonance feels subtle today, since it no longer follows a fixed pattern the way rhyme does.
With the definition settled, the quickest way to learn the device is to hear it in poems that are well known and in the public domain.
Famous Examples of Assonance in Poetry
Read each line aloud, slowly, and mark the vowels as you go, a habit explained in how to annotate a poem.
Each poem below is an example of assonance in poetry that works a slightly different way, and together they show how a vowel sound can travel through a line.
Tennyson’s “The Lotos-Eaters”
Tennyson wrote this poem in the early 1830s, so it is in the public domain, and the Poets.org entry above picks out the closing lines of one stanza for their vowel play:
“Courage!” he said, and pointed toward the land,
“This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.”
In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.
A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
And some thro’ wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.
They saw the gleaming river seaward flow
From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops,
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,
Stood sunset-flush’d: and, dew’d with showery drops,
Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.
The charmed sunset linger’d low adown
In the red West: thro’ mountain clefts the dale
Was seen far inland, and the yellow down
Border’d with palm, and many a winding vale
And meadow, set with slender galingale;
A land where all things always seem’d the same!
And round about the keel with f acespale,
Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.
Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,
Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave
To each, but whoso did receive of them,
And taste, to him the gushing of the wave
Far far away did seem to mourn and rave
On alien shores; and if his fellow spake,
His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;
And deep-asleep he seem’d, yet all awake,
And music in his ears his beating heart did make.
They sat them down upon the yellow sand,
Between the sun and moon upon the shore;
And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,
Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore
Most weary seem’d the sea, weary the oar,
Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.
Then some one said, “We will return no more”;
And all at once they sang, “Our island home
Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam.”
CHORIC SONG
I
There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tir’d eyelids upon tir’d eyes;
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.
Here are cool mosses deep,
And thro’ the moss the ivies creep,
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.”
II
Why are we weigh’d upon with heaviness,
And utterly consumed with sharp distress,
While all things else have rest from weariness?
All things have rest: why should we toil alone,
We only toil, who are the first of things,
And make perpetual moan,
Still from one sorrow to another thrown:
Nor ever fold our wings,
And cease from wanderings,
Nor steep our brows in slumber’s holy balm;
Nor harken what the inner spirit sings,
“There is no joy but calm!”
Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?
III
Lo! in the middle of the wood,
The folded leaf is woo’d from out the bud
With winds upon the branch, and there
Grows green and broad, and takes no care,
Sun-steep’d at noon, and in the moon
Nightly dew-fed; and turning yellow
Falls, and floats adown the air.
Lo! sweeten’d with the summer light,
The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,
Drops in a silent autumn night.
All its allotted length of days
The flower ripens in its place,
Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,
Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.
IV
Hateful is the dark-blue sky,
Vaulted o’er the dark-blue sea.
Death is the end of life; ah, why
Should life all labour be?
Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,
And in a little while our lips are dumb.
Let us alone. What is it that will last?
All things are taken from us, and become
Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have
To war with evil? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave?
All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave
In silence; ripen, fall and cease:
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.
V
How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream,
With half-shut eyes ever to seem
Falling asleep in a half-dream!
To dream and dream, like yonder amber light,
Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height;
To hear each other’s whisper’d speech;
Eating the Lotos day by day,
To watch the crisping ripples on the beach,
And tender curving lines of creamy spray;
To lend our hearts and spirits wholly
To the influence of mild-minded melancholy;
To muse and brood and live again in memory,
With those old faces of our infancy
Heap’d over with a mound of grass,
Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass!
VI
Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,
And dear the last embraces of our wives
And their warm tears: but all hath suffer’d change:
For surely now our household hearths are cold,
Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange:
And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.
Or else the island princes over-bold
Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings
Before them of the ten years’ war in Troy,
And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.
Is there confusion in the little isle?
Let what is broken so remain.
The Gods are hard to reconcile:
‘Tis hard to settle order once again.
There is confusion worse than death,
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,
Long labour unto aged breath,
Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars
And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars.
VII
But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly,
How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly)
With half-dropt eyelid still,
Beneath a heaven dark and holy,
To watch the long bright river drawing slowly
His waters from the purple hill—
To hear the dewy echoes calling
From cave to cave thro’ the thick-twined vine—
To watch the emerald-colour’d water falling
Thro’ many a wov’n acanthus-wreath divine!
Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine,
Only to hear were sweet, stretch’d out beneath the pine.
VIII
The Lotos blooms below the barren peak:
The Lotos blows by every winding creek:
All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone:
Thro’ every hollow cave and alley lone
Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown.
We have had enough of action, and of motion we,
Roll’d to starboard, roll’d to larboard, when the surge was seething free,
Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea.
Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,
In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined
On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.
For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl’d
Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl’d
Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world:
Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,
Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands.
But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song
Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong,
Like a tale of little meaning tho’ the words are strong;
Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,
Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,
Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil;
Till they perish and they suffer—some, ’tis whisper’d—down in hell
Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell,
Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.
Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore
Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;
O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.
Credit: Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Lotos-Eaters” (1833). Public domain.
The long a carries the first two lines and returns in “flame” and “came,” so the passage seems to circle back on itself like the sailors’ dazed approach.
The last line then shifts, with the long i of “mild” and “eyed” landing twice in a row before the long e that ends “melancholy” and returns in “eaters.”
Because the vowels change as the line moves, the sound seems to drift, which suits a poem about sailors lulled into forgetting home.
Poe’s “The Raven”
Poe published “The Raven” in 1845, and this pair of lines from its second stanza builds sound without leaning on end rhyme:
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiantmaiden whom the angelsnameLenore—
Nameless here for evermore.
And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
“’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;—
This it is and nothing more.”
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;—
Darkness there and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—
Merely this and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—
’Tis the wind and nothing more!”
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as “Nevermore.”
But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—
Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before—
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”
Then the bird said “Nevermore.”
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of ‘Never—nevermore’.”
But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,
But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!
Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—
On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—
Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—
“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—nevermore!
Credit: Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven.” First published by Wiley and Putnam, 1845, in The Raven and Other Poems. Public domain. Source: Poetry Foundation.
Five words share the long a: “radiant,” “maiden,” “angels,” “name,” and “Nameless,” the last one echoing “name” from the line above.
“Rare” sits right beside them but uses a different vowel, a useful reminder to match sounds exactly rather than letters.
Blake’s “The Tyger”
Blake printed “The Tyger” in 1794 in Songs of Experience, and its opening stanza works like a chant:
Tyger Tyger,burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat.
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp.
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Credit: William Blake, “The Tyger,” from Songs of Experience (1794). Public domain. Source: Poetry Foundation.
Because the “y” in “Tyger” sounds like a long i, the vowel appears twice in the repeated name and again in “bright,” then in “night” and “eye” on the lines that follow.
The line-by-line explanation of The Tyger covers what the rest of the poem does with that opening.
Short Poems With Assonance to Read Aloud
Short poems let the device show itself in a line or two, so the table below puts each poem, its poet, and the matching vowel sound side by side.
Lowell died in 1925 and Arnold in 1888, so their lines are in the public domain.
| Poem and Poet | Line | Repeated Vowel | Matching Words |
| “In a Garden” by Amy Lowell | “With its leaping, and deep, cool murmur” | Long e | leaping, deep |
| “The Taxi” by Amy Lowell (1914) | “And shout into the ridges of the wind” | Short i | into, ridges, wind |
| “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold (1867) | “The sea is calm tonight. / The tide is full, the moon lies fair” | Long i | tonight, tide, lies (and “light” in line 3) |
| “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop | Not quoted, since the poem is still under copyright | Assonance mixed with consonance | See the lesson linked below |
The Poetry Foundation points to both Lowell poems in its glossary entry on assonance.
Oregon State’s Raymond Malewitz uses the opening of “Dover Beach” in a lesson on assonance and consonance to show how both devices differ from rhyme.
In the same lesson, he reads Bishop’s unrhymed description of a battered fish she has just caught, credits its music in part to consonance, and asks listeners to pick out the assonance as well.
Types of Assonance in Poetry
Assonance in poetry is usually sorted two ways. By vowel length, it is long vowel assonance, which tends to slow a line, or short vowel assonance, which tends to quicken it.
By position, it is internal assonance, with echoes inside a line, or end assonance, where only the vowels at the ends of lines match.
Long Vowel and Short Vowel Assonance
Long vowels take longer to say, so a run of them, like the long i and long e in Tennyson’s line, stretches the line out and suits a calm or heavy mood.
Short vowels clip the line, as the short i in Lowell’s “into,” “ridges,” and “wind” does, and they tend to quicken the pace.
Poets often mix both inside a stanza, so treat the effect as a tendency instead of a rule. Reading the Tennyson and Lowell lines back to back makes the difference in speed easy to hear.
Internal Assonance and End Assonance
Internal assonance, like the long a in Poe’s “radiant maiden,” happens inside a line and adds music without changing how the line ends.
End assonance, also called vowel rhyme, matches only the vowels where lines close, so “time” and “mine” pair up even though the final consonants differ.
This second kind has deep roots. Poets.org notes that early Spanish and French verse relied on it before full rhyme took over, and LitCharts reports that Old English poetry such as “The Seafarer” leaned on assonance and consonance more than on rhyme.
LitCharts also notes that the rapper Nas builds slant rhymes through assonance, so the technique is still in everyday use.
How to Spot Assonance in a Poem
To find assonance in a poem, read the lines aloud, listen for a vowel sound that returns within a few words, and ignore spelling while you listen.
Mark each stressed vowel as you hear it, then check whether the same sound repeats close by. Two or three matches within a line or two usually signal assonance rather than coincidence.
The five steps below turn that advice into a routine you can use on any poem.
- Read the line aloud at half speed so every vowel is audible.
- Underline the vowel sound in each stressed syllable, writing it as a sound such as “ee” or “oh” instead of spelling it.
- Look for the same sound within a line or two of itself, since distance matters more than count.
- Check the line endings. If they match too, you are also hearing rhyme, and the vowel pattern is the part assonance covers.
- Ask what the pattern does, whether it slows the line, speeds it up, or draws attention to a phrase.
Spelling causes most of the mistakes. “Gray” and “pace” share a long a despite looking nothing alike, “Tyger” starts with a long i, and the letters ough sound different in “through” and “cough.”
A habit I recommend to adult learners is covering the page with a hand and listening to the line first, because silent reading lets the eye overrule the ear.
What Assonance Does for a Poem
Assonance gives a poem internal rhythm, sets a mood through vowel length, and makes lines easier to remember by tying words together through shared sound.
Poets use it when they want music without the formality of end rhyme, which is why it turns up so often in unrhymed poems.
Consonance and assonance in poetry often arrive together, and Malewitz’s reading of Bishop shows how the pair can carry music through an unrhymed passage.
Restraint matters, though. Poe’s cluster of long sounds works because it appears once and passes, and the same sound repeated line after line starts to sound like a nursery rhyme.
When you write your own lines, try one cluster per stanza and read it aloud before deciding whether it earns its place.
Reading Assonance in Poetry by Ear
Assonance in poetry comes down to vowel sounds that return close together, and the best way to learn it is to hear it in real lines, from Tennyson’s drifting long vowels to Lowell’s clipped short i.
Sound outranks spelling, long vowels slow a line while short ones quicken it, and the five-step read-aloud routine works on any poem.
For your next step, pick one short poem you already like, read it aloud twice, and underline every vowel sound that comes back within a line or two.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is Consonance vs. Assonance?
Assonance repeats vowel sounds (“cold stone, slow road”), while consonance repeats consonant sounds (“black clock, thick pack”). Neither needs the words to rhyme, and many lines contain both.
What Are 20 Examples of Assonance?
Long a: late, brain, they, shade. Long e: sleep, dream, believe, seas. Long i: light, sky, find, high. Long o: slow, road, own, grove. Short i: ship, quick, bridge, hill. Any phrase built from one group, such as “slow road home,” shows assonance.
What Is Assonance and Anaphora?
Anaphora repeats the same word or phrase at the start of successive lines, such as several lines opening with “I remember.” Assonance repeats a vowel sound inside different words, so it needs no repeated words at all.
