I learned a new poetical concept today: slant rhyme. This term refers to the use of words that do not rhyme exactly, but have enough in common to work in hymn texts.
Here are some of the more interesting words used as slant rhymes that I have found in my recent study of a number of hymnals:
God – flood, blood, stood, abroad, abode
Lord – Word
love – prove, rove, remove
Savior – favor
faith – death
grace – praise; praise – always
Christ – price
perfume – tomb
sacrifice – replies; sacrifice – life
come – womb
obey – away
do – go
come – home
Him – sin; sin – clean
more – storm
oppressed – rest
dire – cry
eyes – price
lost – most
eve – live
name – diadem
proclaim – Lamb
cross – distress
men – train
grave – have
confessed – blest
noon – dome
men – again
alone – home
too – refuse
state – grace
sound – town
name – stream
form – torn
Learning of and understanding this practice is going to make my project of setting many of the Psalms to music much easier!
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The best writers (Watts, Wesley, etc.) use very few of these, if any. I wouldn’t recommend adding too many if you’re going to get them published. Believe me, I’ve tried 🙂
Thanks for the advice, Dustin. I’ll work on using them sparingly!