Easy-peasy, you might be thinking. There’s not much rhyming happening here.
Not so fast, Shmoopers. While there isn’t many full rhymes, she does use slant rhyming. Check out the first stanza:
We grow accustomed to the Dark –
When Light is put away –
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye –
The last word in the second and fourth line are slant rhymes. It’s not the most obvious thing in the world, but it’s there throughout the poem, at least until we get to the fourth stanza:
The Bravest – grope a little –
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead –
But as they learn to see –
“Tree” and “See” are full rhymes. She switches it up yet again in the final stanza:
Either the Darkness alters --
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight --
And Life steps almost straight again
Now, “sight” and “Midnight” rhyme. Why switch up a poem that has otherwise such strict iambic meter (see “Form and Meter” for more)? Perhaps she wanted to emphasize the change in imagery in the last two stanzas; after hanging out in the darkness at the beginning of the poem, we’ve finally started to grope around and gain our footing.