[A Lament]
Am I the last of the Rhymers,
The only one left who loves rhyme?
With the metre and scan I love dearly:
Am I the one who's out of time?
My rhymes may be lightsome and foolish,
But they say, clearly, just what they mean.
The verse of my comperes is open,
Or “free,” on the poetry scene.
They cannot know what they are missing,
When they bring forth each strange, tortured line.
The fine metrication is gone now.
And of scansion and rhyme there's no sign.
The lines may be shorter or longer,
And often include the obscene,
But they bring little joy in the hearing,
Oh! Mourn for the poetry scene.
Magazines run abstruse competitions
Which Rhymers like me do not win,
For in writing in rhyme we are right out of time,
And committing the ultimate sin.
Geoffrey Chaucer first wrote lines in English,
With meticulous metre and rhyme,
And those who came after continued
To write, using rhythmical time.
Through the centuries poets, divinely
Wrote lines that will never escape
In words that cannot be forgotten,
For their content, their form and their shape.
Why has the fun gone away now
And the sheer joy of writing true lines?
Where is the music, enchanting,
When rhyming and scansion combines?
Have we lost all our love of our language,
That we use it with tortuous pain?
Rhymers, come, rally, support me:
Help me make poems lovely again.
But don't take the view that I'm lonely,
Or sigh for my solitary track,
For I'm not the last of the Rhymers.
I'm the first one to start fighting back.
Now, your lines' random length
Vitiates all their strength
To a featureless plateau of prosing:
Mock me or shock me, reject me, AFFECT me -
INVOLVE me - my Muse dislikes musing!
Where is the musical beauty
Which makes up the soul of a poet?
Without scansion or time,
Above all, without rhyme,
You have lost it - or never did know it!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Am I the last of the Rhymers,
The only one left who loves rhyme?
With the metre and scan I love dearly:
Am I the one who's out of time?
My rhymes may be lightsome and foolish,
But they say, clearly, just what they mean.
The verse of my comperes is open,
Or “free,” on the poetry scene.
They cannot know what they are missing,
When they bring forth each strange, tortured line.
The fine metrication is gone now.
And of scansion and rhyme there's no sign.
The lines may be shorter or longer,
And often include the obscene,
But they bring little joy in the hearing,
Oh! Mourn for the poetry scene.
Magazines run abstruse competitions
Which Rhymers like me do not win,
For in writing in rhyme we are right out of time,
And committing the ultimate sin.
Geoffrey Chaucer first wrote lines in English,
With meticulous metre and rhyme,
And those who came after continued
To write, using rhythmical time.
Through the centuries poets, divinely
Wrote lines that will never escape
In words that cannot be forgotten,
For their content, their form and their shape.
Why has the fun gone away now
And the sheer joy of writing true lines?
Where is the music, enchanting,
When rhyming and scansion combines?
Have we lost all our love of our language,
That we use it with tortuous pain?
Rhymers, come, rally, support me:
Help me make poems lovely again.
But don't take the view that I'm lonely,
Or sigh for my solitary track,
For I'm not the last of the Rhymers.
I'm the first one to start fighting back.
Now, your lines' random length
Vitiates all their strength
To a featureless plateau of prosing:
Mock me or shock me, reject me, AFFECT me -
INVOLVE me - my Muse dislikes musing!
Where is the musical beauty
Which makes up the soul of a poet?
Without scansion or time,
Above all, without rhyme,
You have lost it - or never did know it!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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