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The rhyme scheme for “The New Colossus” is ABBAABBA CDCDCD. This scheme is typical for the Italian sonnet form, which consists of two main sections: an eight-line section known as the octave and a six-line section known as the sestet. Whereas the octave nearly always rhymes ABBAABBA, poets can configure the rhymes for the sestet as they please. Sometimes the sestet can feature three rhymes (e.g., CDECDE), and sometimes, as in this case, it can feature just two (e.g., CDCDCD). Regarding the overall rhyme scheme, then, “The New Colossus” is a typical Italian sonnet. However, Lazarus’s careful choice of rhyme words deserves further comment. If we readers were to look down the right-hand side of the poem and read only the rhyme words, we’d already have a strong sense of the speaker’s message:

fame, land, stand, flame, name, beacon-hand, command, frame // she, poor, free, shore, me, door

With these words alone, the speaker presents a suggestive vision of the New Colossus. The rhyme words of the octave depict the statue as a famous figure who, in a commanding stance and bearing a torch in her “beacon-hand,” frames the entrance to this new land. Turning to the sestet, the rhymes clearly indicate that this New Colossus is a welcoming figure, calling the poor to the shore where they will pass through the door to freedom.

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