Ash Wednesday

The poem frequently employs end rhyme, which is the rhyming of the final syllables of two lines. However, there is no consistent rhyme pattern. In Part I, Verse 3, “place” rhymes with “face” (Lines 19, 21), and “voice” rhymes with “rejoice” (Lines 22, 25). In Verse 4, “us” rhymes with “discuss” (Lines 26, 28), and “explain” rhymes with “again” (Lines 29-30). Part I, Verse 4 has a rhyme scheme that can be represented ABACCDCA. Verse 5 has a different rhyme scheme, ABACBC. In fact, no two verses contain the same rhyme scheme, and Part II does not employ end rhyme at all, other than in the first two lines.

Part III rhymes as follows: Verse 1, ABCADA; Verse 2, ABCAC; Verse 3, ABCCBDEAAA. In Part IV, the end rhymes occur mainly in the first verse, thus: ABBCDCED. End rhyme is not a significant part of Part V, but it returns in Verses 2 and 3 of Part VI, which rhyme AABCDBC and AABBCCDDE, respectively.

In Part IV and elsewhere Eliot rhymes using exactly the same word in both sound and sense: “restoring” (Lines 16, 17) “redeem” (Lines 18, 19); in Part V, “unheard” (Lines 3, 4), “pray” (Lines 24, 26), and “rocks” (Lines 32, 33). This is called “identical” rhyme. In addition to the identical rhymes, Eliot frequently repeats single words or phrases (either exactly or with a slight change). Occasionally, this conveys a liturgical, almost chant-like quality: “Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death / Pray for us now and at the hour of our death” (Part I, Lines 40-41). An example of the repetition of single words occurs in Part VI, Lines 11-12: “And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices / In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices."

On one occasion, Eliot employs a homophone to create an identical rhyme. A homophone refers to words that are spelled differently but sound the same. They may also have different meanings. The homophone occurs in Part V, Line 8: “world” and “whirled.” The homophone here also happens to be an internal rhyme. An internal rhyme is a rhyme that occurs within a line. In Ash Wednesday, this occurs often in Part V, such as in Line 18, which has two internal rhymes: “No place of grace for those who avoid the face.” In the following line, “rejoice” and “voice” (Line 19) is an internal rhyme, as is “chose thee and oppose thee” in Line 21 and “torn on the horn” (Line 22). Line 22 also contains two internal identical rhymes, and the line after it contains three (although none of these involves an end-rhyme): “Those who are torn on the horn between season and season, time and time, between / Hour and hour, word and word, power and power, those who wait” (Line 23).

Alliteration is a common poetic device that refers to the repetition of nearby consonants. There are a number of examples in Ash Wednesday. These include “Terminate torment” (Part III, Line 35), “Fiddles and the flutes” (Part IV, Line 13), “Silent sister” (Part IV, Line 22), “The salt savor of the sandy earth” (Part VI, Line 19), “Time of tension” (Part VI, Line 20), and “Suffer me not to be separated” (Part VI, Line 34).