To My Dear Loving Husband

“To My Dear and Loving Husband” is written in iambic pentameter as shown in these two lines: “If ever wife was happy in a man, / Compare with me, ye women, if you can.”Most of the poem sticks to this particular metrical pattern. The rhyme scheme is AABBCCDD and EEFF, which means there are rhyming couplets in the entire poem. In the whole poem, the eighth line is an exception, as it does not completely rhyme with the ninth line. However, the final words of the eighth and ninth lines, “quench” and “recompense,” both contain the “-en” sound. This is an apt use of near rhyme, or slant rhyme.

Anaphora is employed in first three lines, in that “If ever” is a repetition of words at the beginning of consecutive lines. It is intended to create a powerful