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Ballad Meter
When I sat down to write a verse
I couldn’t think at all.
All I could do was groan and curse
My useless, vapid scrawl.
My pen was poised above the page,
Inclined to overflow.
It quivered, eager to engage
In battle down below.
Yet nothing wild and worthy came
To mind while I marked time,
A-tapping on the table frame
And toying with a rhyme.
I soon resigned, laid down my pen,
Rose up to drift away.
Outside the world was dark again,
The evening clouds scorched gray.
I found an empty window sill,
Laid down my weary head,
Ignored the creeping autumn chill,
Gazed doggedly ahead.
Impossible! I cried aloud,
Dismayed at my defeat.
No decent poet, fierce and proud
Would willingly retreat.
But sure enough, as I stared out
The window at the sky,
I winced beneath the weight of doubt.
I breathed a wintry sigh.
Was this how I would end my days?
Was this my greatest foe?
Of all the many noble ways,
I hoped ‘t would not be so.
Yet all my days of penning lines
Upon the empty page,
Of searching through the sky for signs
Of wordy wars to wage,
Had not prepared me for this hour;
To taste undoing, sharp and sour.
For I’d never met a poison sweeter
Than the wicked ballad meter.
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