I read some Kipling and I thought

That Kipling's way was how I ought

To make my verses all the time –

And yet – I couldn't make mine rhyme.

 

And Beowulf – oh my poor head!

“What happened to the rhymes?” I said.

Alliteration's good, it's true –

But I must have a rhyme or two.

 

Shakespeare's sonnets far beyond

My little rhyming powers yawned.

And what is left he didn't say?

I really thought of naught that day.

 

Hiawatha (how to pronounce?)

My Indian names made readers trounce

Me, so I thought I'd leave alone

Adventures of “Turrintelone”.

 

Befuddled, muddled, and bemused,

I can't make poems as they used.

And so I really must just now

Use styling of my own, I trow.