An eye rhyme, also known as a visual rhyme or a sight rhyme, is a type of rhyme where two words are spelled in a similar way but are pronounced differently.

Many older English poems, especially those written in Early Modern and Middle English, include rhymes that were once true rhymes. However, modern readers may find these rhymes to be eye rhymes because the way words are pronounced has changed over time, particularly due to the Great Vowel Shift. These rhymes are called historic rhymes. Linguists use historic rhymes to study and understand how languages were spoken in the past. They are especially helpful in learning about Old Chinese, as its writing system does not clearly show how words were pronounced.

Historic rhymes

One example of a historic rhyme (a rhyme that was real in the past but is no longer a true rhyme today) is found in the following lines:

"The great man down, you mark his favourite flies; The poor advanced makes friends of enemies."

— Player King, in William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene II

When Hamlet was written around 1600, the words "flies" and "enemies" sounded like they rhymed in local dialects. However, changes in pronunciation over time have caused the original rhyme to disappear.

Another example of a historic rhyme is:

"Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey; Dost sometimes counsel take—and sometimes tea."

— Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock, Canto III

When this poem was published in 1712, the word "tea" was often pronounced "tay," as it still is in some dialects today. The pronunciation "tee" became more common in the mid-1700s.

Some historic rhymes that were lost due to changes in pronunciation during the Great Vowel Shift were still used as rhymes in later years. For example, in 1940, W. H. Auden wrote:

"Let the Irish vessel lie, Emptied of its poetry."

— "In Memory of W. B. Yeats"

This rhyme follows the same pattern as "flies" and "enemies" from Hamlet, even though by the 20th century, "lie" and "poetry" no longer sounded like they rhymed. When Auden read the poem aloud, he used the modern, non-rhyming pronunciations of these words.

Similarly, even though the word "wind" changed to its modern pronunciation in the 1700s, it was still common to rhyme it as if it were pronounced "wined." For example, in 1896, Ernest Dowson wrote:

"I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind, Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng, Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind…"

— "Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae"