In poetry, internal rhyme, or middle rhyme, is rhyme that occurs within a single line of verse, or between internal phrases across multiple lines. By contrast, rhyme between line endings is known as end rhyme.
Examples
Percy Dearmer (1867-1936) revised John Bunyan's (1628-1688) poem "To Be a Pilgrim" in 1906. It became a popular hymn when Canon Charles Winfred Douglas (1867-1944) set it to music in 1917. Here are Dearmer's lyrics, with the internal rhymes in bold. Notice that in these three quatrains the internal rhymes are also echoed in the line rhymes (also in bold).
Internal rhyme schemes were extremely common in popular song of the Swing Era. One familiar example is the bridge from "Don't Fence Me In," written by Cole Porter for the film "Hollywood Canteen" in 1944:
Internal rhyme is used extensively in rap/hip hop music, where it sometimes overlaps with assonance. The usage of internal rhyme in rap has increased over time, but can be found even in the earliest rap songs, such as the Sugarhill Gang's 1979 single, Rapper's Delight:
Internal rhyme is used frequently by many different hip hop artists, including Kool Moe Dee, Big Daddy Kane, Nas and Rakim, as demonstrated in Eric B. and Rakim's 1987 piece, "My Melody" from their debut album Paid In Full:
Another prominent hip hop artist who uses complex internal rhymes is AZ, as shown in "The Format":
Black Thought rapper from The Roots uses internal rhymes in song Respond/React.
The Beatles use internal rhyme in their song Hey Jude.
MF DOOM uses almost every word for a bunch of internal rhymes, in this verse in his song, "Figaro."