The sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines with approximately ten syllables in each line. The rhythm is iambic pentameter. Lines are rhymed in any one of several patterns. Almost all of Shakespeare's sonnets take the rhyme form traditionally called the Shakespearean or English sonnet: abab cdcd efef gg. Each letter designates words that are rhymed, as highlighted in the sonnet below:

Like as the waves make toward the pebbled shore, a

So do our minutes hasten to their end, b
Each changing place with that which goes before, a
In sequent toil all forwards do contend. b

 

Nativity, once in the main of light, c
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned, d

Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight, c
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound. d

 

Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth, e
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow, f
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth, e
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow. f

 

And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand, g

Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand. g

Notice that the rhymes divide the poem into four sections, separated by blank lines above. Often these divisions mark units of thought or feeling in the poem; thus they are separate sentences in Sonnet 60. The first eight lines, called the octave or octet, and the last six lines, called the sestet, are especially likely to have some transition between them. The last two lines, called the couplet because they are rhymed together, form another unit and often comment on what has gone before or change the tone. Thus in Sonnet 60 the hope offered by the speaker's poetry emerges for the first time in the couplet.

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