THE FORMALIST’S SECRET

               The secret that we formalists find out
               And “free verse” poets can’t appreciate
               When they decide rebelliously to flout
               Restrictions that have made the Classics great

               Is that there’s “magic in the web” of verse
               That patters out until it finds what rhyme
               The supplicated Muse will then disburse
               From deep recesses of the mind’s Sublime.

               The paradox is that this strange restraint
               That so much narrows down one’s range of thought
               And might well try the patience of a saint
               Miraculously provides what one has sought:

                    As rhymes and meters happily embrace,
                    The poet enjoys the blessed Muse’s grace.

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