i sink in quagmire,
my soul stinging,
mud in nostrils,
suffocating,

cannot breathe,
yet still placating,
begging reprieve,
for soul is aching

visions of men
flash before me,
shining faces
silent plea

i close my eyes
as devil blacker
throws arms around,
the spirit attacker

i long for the light,
for I know He
longs my return,
has yen for embrace,

and one day still
the holy spirit
Will draw me from depths
to bathe in His Grace.

lost in the darkness
blacker than black
tired of starkness
of torture-rack
of human hostility
man's brutality
constant attack
as millions lack

at times the vaulted glass is shut
the grey-white sky, depressing hut,
but down below, there's hidden glow,
within the heart of indigo

at time the heavens open wide
a groom to greet his new-wed bride
and soul escapes its black confine
to meld with nature and divine

and now i write, sick at heart,
the crow cries out as archer's dart,
the blackbird sings with scratchy needle
plays recording of synagogue beadle

the black will pass as day must night
push, declare, its right and might,
one day the sun will shine again
and soul will sing as lover's swain.

I am the very model of a modern poet laureate,
I've information rhythmical, poetical and lexical,
I know the poets of our land and quote their plays historical,
From Macbeth to Much Ado, in order categorical;

I'm very well acquainted, too, with rhythm hendecasyllable,
I understand assonance and refrain octosyllable,
About pentameter theory I'm teeming with a lot o' news,
With many cheerful facts about the style of poet Edward Hughes.

I'm very good at couplets and at blank verse very fabulous;
I know the seventy-one plays ascribed to Aeschylus:
In short, in matters rhymical, poetical, and lexical,
I am the very model of a modern poet laureate.

I know our poem-history, Caedmon's Hymn to Chaucer's works;
I can cite bards' acrostics with volatility in my vocal box,
I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus,
In dialect ionic I can cite Semonides of Amorgos;

I can tell undoubted Aratus from Aristeus and Sophocles,
I know the croaking chorus from The Frogs of Aristophanes!
Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din afore,
And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.

Then I can write a decasyllable as a dactyl or tetrameter,
And tell you ev'ry detail of soliloquies in Shakespeare:
In short, in matters rhythmical, poetical, to elloquate,
I am the very model of a modern poet laureate.

In fact, when I know what is meant by a "septet" and a "sestet",
When I can tell at sight a literary from a prose effect,
When such affairs as odic and idyllic I'm more wary at,
And when I know precisely 'to be or not to be' by Dane "Hamlet".

When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern rhymery,
When I know more iambic than a novice in a nunnery
In short, when I'm audacious, vexatious and dilatory
You'll say a poet laureate has ne'er been so conciliatory.

For my alliteration knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,
Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;
But still, in matters rhythmical, poetical and etiquette,
I am the very model of a modern poet laureate.