Come, my Muse, let us exalt the Obvious!
Unfettered, let us name
The sum of two and two, the which
Is four.
This form of verse, vers libre , lends itself
Exactly to our purpose,
For obvious reasons —
Reasons as obvious as Marie
Corelli.

We can be commonplace, my Muse, in o. f. forms,
But 'tis more difficult;
For, questing rimes, one ofttimes strays afield
And happens on some dainty flower of fancy
That elsewhere might have blushed
Unseen;
Or finds a piquant phrase, unworn,
Unfrazzled, and
Uncanned.

But in Free Verse, my Muse, the likelihood
Of such discoveries is less,
Though accidents will happen
In the worst regulated poems.
Here we are free as air, and hence
Our airy nothings, which are
Nothing if not airy;
And hence we give ourselves airs,
And air our grievances against the persons
Who cannot see us,
Who could not see us with the telescope
At Lick.