Do you like my metaphysical style,

Or more my crisp, neo-classical ascent?

Romanticism curbed—a repressed smile;

Enlightenment through which my heart is lent.

My staunch proclivity for formal verse?

Didactic threads by which I strive to teach—

Not freestyle (which I’ve found a bit perverse),

Nor endless epics—much too long a reach.

But then I tip to satire—wry and sly—

And wink at Shakespeare, Donne, and Pope in turn;

They loom like suns too brilliant for my eye,

Yet in their shadows, still for quill I yearn.

In lyric wonder may I leap and prance—

As one who’s learned through art the steps to dance!