Artificial Verse - Parody William Cowper And Lucianus- Artificial Beauty Poem by Jonathan ROBIN

You give your verse a prosy st[r]ain,
with stress complete the air,
but vain attempts too often strain
and stress is in the air.

Those discords mock your daily toil,
no editors efface them,
and as blank lines from blank uncoil
its difficult to face them.

An art so fruitless then forsake –
which though you’d fain excel in –
you never may contrive to make
both form and sense flow well in.

8 December 1991