A normal Shakespearean sonnet uses an abrupt uptick in end rhyme in the final couplet, shifting from ABAB quatrains to a GG couplet. To this couplet Shakespeare adds dense internal rhyme. In line 13, “breathe” and “see” are connected through assonance; that they land on the stresses of line’s third and fifth beats, respectively, accentuates the connection. In line 14, “lives” and “gives” injects an additional perfect rhyme to the couplet. This abundance of internal rhyme underscore the speaker’s point about poetry’s power.
