Sasha30 Sep 2004

They can.

C.F. Shakespeare (sonnet 18, lines 13-14)

"SO long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives grace to thee."

Wilfred Owen, Anthom for Doomed youth (lines 13-14)

"Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
and each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds."

Or the last lines from a sonnet by Ronsard, Les amours de Marie, XIX:
"Ça! Ça! que je baise et votre beau tétin
Cent fois pour vois apprendre à vous lever matin."

In short, even though your word is law and god where poetic forms are concerned, and even though you are exceedingly well informed on the topic and I clearly don't know anything at all about it, the last 2 lines can, and frequently do rhyme in a sonnet.