Chinese Rhymes
Everybody who cares anything for old poetry in English knows how it feels—knows how awful it feels—when a poem is rhyming away and then suddenly the rhyme goes off the rails for a second because English pronunciation has changed since the time the poem was written. Take a look at this gallery of specimens.
Exhibit A:
Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
Millions of examples of that. Love rhymed with prove or move. Elizabethan poetry is rife with this.
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Exhibit B:
A winning wave, deserving note
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoestring in whose tie
I see a wild civility.
Tie used to be pronounced tee. Read it again and say tee where it says tie. Aha.
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Exhibit C:
Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes, and know What’s roundly smooth or languishingly slow. And praise the easy vigor of a
