I tried to make a perfect line 
It left me dumb. I failed. 
The impotence of my metered rhyme 
Had quite quailed the fine 
Control I hailed. 
I lose the music that I loosed 
In binding 
Lose the soundness of the knot 
In winding. 
Still I try, until the rhythm 
Chatters in my brain 
The rhymes come fast 
And then again 
But the slow sweet whiling sense of what 
I feel is lost in form 
Corseted into a stiff uncomfortable shape. 
I can't conform -- 
And make a poem. 

The mathematics that circumscribe the human soul 
Quite leave me awed. 
Their circlings seem to lack control 
Like the wanderings of the tendrils 
Before the vine is fast and sets a pod.

 
©1972 William H. Southwell
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