Question

reread the first six lines of the sonnet. if the first line is identified as \a\ in the rhyme scheme, how should the remaining lines be identified?
shall i compare thee to a summer’s day?
thou art more lovely and more temperate:
rough winds do shake the darling buds of may,
and summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
and often is his gold complexion dimm’d,

Explanation:

To determine the rhyme scheme, we analyze the end - sounds of each line. The first line ends with "day", and the third line ends with "May", the fourth line ends with "date" – these have the same (or similar) end - sounds, so they belong to the "a" group in the rhyme scheme. The second line ends with "temperate", the fifth line ends with "shines", and the sixth line ends with "dimm'd" – these have a different end - sound from "day/May/date", so they belong to the "b" group. So the rhyme scheme for the six lines is a, b, a, a, b, b.

Answer:

Line 2: b
Line 3: a
Line 4: a
Line 5: b
Line 6: b