The Montagues and Capulets is a tale of tragic throes,
yet nothing half as hapless as the war of Rhyme and Prose.
Its fragments seem to tell the tale of rhythms crossing stars,
that happened by their fervor to foment familial bars.
Good Rhyme when met by pretense, in the riddle that was Prose
skipped her mental pitter at the flitter of his flows.
And in seeing Rhyme had rhythm, Old Prose fell off his feet
and said without her reason that his life was ne’er complete.
The two did meet in secret, for none could bear the shame
of mixing up the metre with the measure of their name.
Faint ‘Iamb Yours’ were muttered by the flutter of the page
which escalated friction in prediction of the phage.
When word broke out they wronged their tome, the two were told to part
and ushered from their opus into isotropous art.
The weight of all the fighting by the pen that was their sword
severed ink, as Prose did drink, the critic of his chord.
Good Rhyme was soon beside herself, for depth that did depart
and sung, though so inside herself, of how her beat had heart.
Each age has seen its liking,
though in form, some do detest
the pairing of a dactyl with a tactile anapest.
The moral of this war of words
is that their feud found way
to mystify the masses in dividing present day.
The only hope we have to end the war of Rhyme and Prose
is not to feed the fodder to the slaughter of the close.
If, perchance, we’re lucky,
such words will find a way,
to heal the strains of sorrow
in the sonnets that we play.
-Amy Struthers
