15 Assonance Examples That Show the Device at Work

Assonance is easy to hear and harder to name. These assonance examples show the device at work in poetry, prose and speech, so you can start using it on purpose.

Assonance is the repetition of a vowel sound in nearby words, regardless of the consonants around it or how the words are spelled. It is a close cousin of alliteration and consonance, but where those devices repeat consonant sounds, assonance repeats the vowel. Poets and prose writers reach for it to build rhythm, tie phrases together, or make a line easier to say out loud.

What Is Assonance?

Assonance happens when the same vowel sound recurs in two or more words that are close together, even if the words don’t rhyme and don’t start with the same letter. “Fleet feet sweep by sleeping geese” repeats the long ee sound five times without a single rhyme in sight. That’s the core trick: assonance works on sound, not spelling, so “rain” and “break” share an assonant vowel even though they’re spelled differently.

Writers use assonance for three main reasons:

1. Rhythm — repeated vowel sounds create a musical pulse without forcing a full rhyme scheme.
2. Mood — long, open vowels (oh, ah) tend to slow a line down and sound mournful or grand; short, tight vowels (i, e) speed things up and sound clipped or anxious.
3. Memorability — assonant phrases stick in the ear, which is why they turn up so often in advertising slogans and song titles.

Assonance Examples in Poetry

1. “Hear the mellow wedding bells” — Edgar Allan Poe, The Bells. The short e sound in “mellow,” “wedding” and “bells” gives the line a light, ringing quality that matches the meaning.
2. “Once upon a midnight dreary” — Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven. The long e sound in “dreary” pairs with the surrounding rhythm to set the poem’s mournful tone from the first line.
3. “Slow, low, and gradual” — a common illustrative construction in poetry teaching: three long o sounds in a row stack up to mimic the sound they describe.
4. “Try to light the fire” — the long i sound repeats across “try,” “light” and “fire,” pulling the phrase together without rhyme.
5. “The crumbling thunder of the surf” — an illustrative line showing how short u sounds in “crumbling” and “thunder” echo the rumble of the sea.

Assonance Examples in Prose and Everyday Speech

6. “A stitch in time saves nine” — the long i sound in “time” and “nine” makes the proverb easier to remember.
7. “The early bird catches the worm” — the short er sound links “early,” “bird” and “worm.”
8. “Go slow over the road” — long o sounds create a drawn-out, cautious feel that matches the advice.
9. “Please go and empty the wet pet” — short e sounds in “wet” and “pet” (and the long e in “please”) give the line a playful bounce.
10. “Free as the sea breeze” — long ee sounds repeat across all three words.

Assonance Examples in Song and Advertising

11. “How now, brown cow” — a classic elocution phrase built entirely on the ow diphthong.
12. “The bad man ran fast” — the short a sound in “bad,” “man” and “ran” binds the phrase, giving it a punchy, singable quality.
13. “Purple curtain” — the short ur sound repeats across both words, a favourite pairing in song lyrics because it flows off the tongue.
14. “Chips ahoy” — the oy/oi sound is deliberately echoed for a catchy, brand-friendly slogan.
15. “Rise and shine” — the long i sound ties “rise” and “shine” together, giving the phrase its punchy, wake-up-call rhythm.

More Assonance Examples from Famous Writers

These attributed lines show the device working in published poetry and prose:

16. “I wandered lonely as a cloud / That floats on high o’er vales and hills” (William Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud). The long o sound recurs through “lonely,” “cloud,” “floats” and “o’er” to give the opening its slow, drifting feel.
17. “Stem end and blossom end, and every fleck of russet showing clear” (Robert Frost, After Apple-Picking). The short e sound in “stem,” “end,” “every” and “fleck” ties the line together.
18. “Soft language issued from their spitless lips as they swished in low circles round the field” (James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man). The short i sound repeats across “issued,” “spitless,” “lips” and “swished,” a rare stretch of assonance in prose.
19. “Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam” (Home on the Range, Brewster M. Higley). The long o sound in “home,” “buffalo” and “roam” is what makes the line sing.
20. “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain” (Alan Jay Lerner, My Fair Lady). The long ai sound in “rain,” “Spain,” “mainly” and “plain” is deliberately overloaded for comic effect.

Assonance vs. Alliteration vs. Consonance

It helps to keep these three sound devices straight:

• Assonance repeats vowel sounds: “the rain in Spain.”
• Alliteration repeats the initial consonant sound: “Peter Piper picked.”
• Consonance repeats consonant sounds anywhere in the word, not just at the start: “pitter patter.”

A single line can use more than one device at once. “The lean, mean bean queen” repeats both the long ee vowel sound (assonance) and the n consonant sound (consonance).

How to Use Assonance in Your Own Writing

Read your sentence out loud first. If two or three words nearby share a vowel sound, notice whether it helps or hurts the rhythm — sometimes accidental assonance makes a sentence feel clumsy rather than musical. When you want the effect on purpose, pick your vowel sound before you pick your words: decide whether you want a long, slow vowel for a solemn moment or a short, quick one for tension, then choose vocabulary that carries that sound.

Assonance rewards editing out loud. Draft the line, read it back, and adjust word choice until the vowel pattern supports what the sentence is trying to do.

Test yourself: the interactive Spot the Assonance quiz at the top of this page is built from real attributed lines.

Related poetic devices: see onomatopoeia examples, the meter checker, and ballad examples. Or browse the full poetic devices hub.