BOUND VERSE

               A former Poet Laureate once said
               To me that formal poetry is dead
               And that I should take off my training wheels
               And make free verse, the kind that now appeals.

                I didn’t think to say what then I should:
               “So how are we to know it’s any good?
               Without a row of hurdles to o’er leap,
               A hum-drum verse will put us all to sleep,

               And when you hear some free verse read, who knows
               That what you’re listening to is not mere prose?”
               I know my attitude’s behind the times,
               And yet I’ll not give up on metered rhymes,

                    And those with ears to hear will still agree     
                    That magic lives in metric poetry.

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