诗的音乐性除了来自节奏外，还来自韵律，即两行或更多的行压韵。英语的词要压韵必须符合以下条件：
1． 重读音节的元音应相同；
2． 它前面的辅音应不同；
3． 它后面如果有辅音，应相同；
4． 它后面如果还有轻读音节，也应相同。
下面几对词是压韵的：
Why-sigh, hate-late, fight-delight, powers-flowers, today-away, ending-bending。
单音节词和重读在后双音节或更多音节的词压韵，叫“阳性韵”（masculine rhyme），如上面的why-sigh, hate-late等；重读音节后还有轻读音节的词压韵，叫“阴性韵”（feminine rhyme），如上面的ending-bending, powers-flowers等。
请看这首诗的尾韵(end rhythm)：
Snow-Flakes
Out of the bosom of the air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descend the snow.
Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.
This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.
---H. W. Longfellow(1807-1882)
本诗尾韵的韵律格式为：第一节ababcc, 第二节为dedeff, 第三节为ahahii。同时本诗也有头韵。所谓头韵是指两个以上的词有相同的辅音开始。本首诗中的头韵有第一节的brown-bare，silent-soft-slow； 第二节的countenance-confession；第三节的slowly-silent-syllables。请欣赏下首诗：
With rue my heart is laden
For golden friends I had,
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfoot lad.
By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
In fields where roses fade.
---A. E. Housman (1859-1936), With Rue My Heart Is Laden
行内韵指一行内有符合压韵规则的两个或更多的词。它的作用主要是增加诗的音乐性，有时可以使几个词在意思上联系起来。如：
I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother’s breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail.
And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.
Percy Bysshe Shelly (1792-1822) The Cloud
历来都有诗人爱写无韵诗，尤其是诗剧和长篇的叙事诗。如莎士比亚的诗剧主要是五步抑扬格的无韵诗（blank verse），这种无韵诗的特色是自由、奔放、酣畅。请欣赏：
Come, my friends,
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that stretch strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are,
We are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
---Alfred Tennyson(1809-1892) Ulysses