Marybeth, I think the only objection is that the breath/death combination is so often used. It's seen as too expected, like moon/June/spoon and love/dove. Somewhere there's probably an official list of Rhymes One Should Use Only With Caution, but I haven't found it.
I recall finding an old thread (either on Mastery or Discerning Eye) that discussed Larkin's pairing of "coastal shelf/ self" in "This Be the Verse." Some thought shelf/self was bad per se; others thought it was redeemed by the offbeat mental image of "It deepens like a coastal shelf." They made the point that even a tired rhyme can be used well.
It's the pairs one rarely sees that make one sit up and take delighted notice. For example, I laughed our loud at virus/Osiris in Quincy's recent poem.
Feminine rhymes, it seems, are always funnier. Ogden Nash puts us in stitches with his penchant for violating all the rules of meter and then ending in a multisyllable rhyme that yokes violently different ideas--like "interpolate them/purple ate them" in "Very Like a Whale."
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