Nature Sonnet - By the Village Poet

When I was young and first began to write

Long poems for the Weekly Advocate,

     The neighbors thought they certainly was great

But higher critics said it was a sight

More hard to write a dainty sonnet right.

     I ‘lowed it warn’t no trick at all to do

     And started it at once to put one through

And did it in no time that very night.

It’s fourteen lines in length, that’s all;

     Ten jumps per line – some call them beats

Or throbs, or meters, it’s more poetical,

     But doesn’t change the form a single speck.

I could grind sonnets all day long, I ween,

But what’s the use of being a machine?

Jan. 19, 1917