Christmas season

Dear Editor,

How about some poetic fun at Christmas time?

Introducing Alexander Pope, who loved to write "rhyming couplets" and use our normal breathing, which requires one breath a line, namely "iambic pentameter," which goes something like this: bar umph bar umph bar umph bar umph bar umph (short, long, five times, and the last word of each two lines of verse rhyming neatly, a pleasantry to the ear, while the content appeals to the reason and/or wit of the reader. To wit:

from his Essay on Criticism

Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules
is Pride, the enver failing voice of fools

Trust not yourself; but your defects to know,
Make use of every friend and every foe.

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep of the Pierian spring
(Pierian -- the Muses or goddesses who preside over inspiring poets etc.)

In wit, as nature, what affects our hearts
Is not the exactness of peculiar parts;
It's not a lip, or eye, we beauty calls,
But the joint force and full result of all.

True wit is nature to advantage dressed,
What oft was thought, but ne'e so well dressed.

Fear not the anger of the wise to raise;
Those best can bear reproof, who merit praise.

Fear most to tax an Honorable fool,
Whose right is, uncensored, to be dull;
Such without wit, are Poets, when they please,
As without learning they can take degrees.

The booklet blockhead, ignorantly read,
With loads of learned lumber in his head,
With his own tongue still edifies his ears,
And always listening to himself appears.

Sincerely,

J.G. McHale,

McCook, Nebraska