Janet,
I'm with you entirely about the rhymes in English, and how rich the possibilities (and realizations!) are. But I disagree about the Italian in comparison. Would you explain what you mean by endings being "grammar driven"? I don't think I am following that point. I think of the long tradition in Italy, going back to the thirteenth century, of jokey-popular poetry, often using rough rhymes--the ones Dante called "rime aspre e ciocche"--harsh and sounding like the screech of a chicken. Or the scabrous poems the Italian poets used to exchange, where rhyme sounds played up the contrasts, the harsher the consonants the better.
Andrew
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