Let's tackle the way this poem rhymes first, because it's kind
of interesting and unusual. Some poems have very regular rhyme
patterns, with the same sounds repeating every line or every
other line. That's not true in this poem. The rhymes in "The
Charge of the Light Brigade" aren't predictable, but they're
still an important part of the way the poem is put together.
These rhymes can happen in all kinds of ways. Sometimes a bunch
of lines in a row will have rhyming words at the end, sometimes
it will be every other line, sometimes two words will almost
rhyme but not quite (we call that near rhyme or slant rhyme).
The easiest way to describe this is just to show you. We'll put
rhyming words in bold, and also tag each sound at the end of a
line with a letter, so you can see which ones match up. Let's
look at Stanza 2, where there's a lot of interesting rhyming
going on: "Forward, the Light Brigade!" (A) Was there a man
dismayed? (A) Not though the soldier knew (B) Someone had
blundered. (C) Theirs not to make r