Strive, Poor Scribbler

Strive, poor scribbler, for a line,
An ancient thought, a primal wine,
And seek the words to make it rhyme
To keep the dancing bear in time,
To render the extinct sublime,
To draw the bones up from the slime
Into our own bewildered clime.
Now hear the bells of Coleridge chime:
     My love is dead, and by design!
     And phantoms linger in Her shrine.
     She is betrayed who once did shine
     By lesser bards with pens like mine,
     And those with music-sense of swine
     Who've sworn perdition on sweet Rhyme--
     They've put a hex on Mother Rhyme!
I wander like a beggar blind
Between the realms of prose and rhyme,
And search the caverns of my mind
For a star, that hopeful sign,
That long at last my net may bind,
A worthy dove to be enshrined.