News at Eleven: The setting sun cast its final rays

And the breeze rocked the pale water lilies.
Among the reeds, the huge water
Lilies shone sadly on the calm water.

"Rays" doesn't really rhyme with "lilies." But there's a small buzz of an echo in the final consonants, as well as the half-hidden assonance of "rays" and "pale." And "water" rhymes with itself, what the French call "rich rhyme" (rime riche). These are tiny almost inconspicuous touches, and Mr. [Karl] Kirchwey uses them throughout--not our clanging "perfect" rhymes in English but something like the slant, feathery sound-effects Verlaine himself obtained. He sees this approach as an attempt "to expand the sense of the possibilities of rhyme," and it works.

from The Wall Street Journal: Foreign to Familiar, Essence Intact

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