‘Twas Ballad, and the Lyric Odes

 Did Alliterate and Anapest in Stanza

All Sonnet were the Couplet Prose

 And the Iambic Sestina.

“Beware the Limerick, my son!

  The jaws that bite, the claws that terse!

Beware the Haiku bird, and shun

  The Personified Quatrain Verse!”

He took his Syntax sword in hand:

  Long time the dactyl foe he sought –

So rested he by the Irony tree,

  And stood a while in thought

And as in Epic thought he stood,

  The Limerick, with eyes of Rhyme

Came Hyperbole-ing through the Simile Wood

  And Epigram-ed as it came!

One, Two! One, Two! And through and through

  The Syntax blade went Consonance

He left it dead, and with its head

  He went metaphor-ing back

And hast thou antagonised the Limerick?

Oh, come to my arms, Paradox Pun!

Oh, Rhetorical day! Pantoum! Cliché!

He Free Versed in his joy.

‘Twas Ballad, and the Lyric Odes

 Did Alliterate and Anapest in Stanza

All Sonnet were the Couplet Prose

 And the Iambic Sestina.