The phrase 'rhyme nor reason' comes from Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, published in 1590, and the lines are spoken by Dromio of Syracuse:

Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season,

When in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme nor reason?

Shakespeare later used the same phrase in As You Like It,published in 1600, this time spoken by Orlando:

Rosalind: But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?

Orlando: Neither rhyme nor reason can express so much.