For centuries, meter and rhyme proved a reliable and pleasing way to orally distribute words of wisdom. Even in today’s world, meter and rhyme predominate in the songs that are played for popular consumption.

Ethelbert's Advice on Writing Poetry

Now I ain't by no means a poet myself,
an' I shor ain't a writer by trade;
but I got a middlin' tight grip on sech thangs
as how a good poem should be made.

An' right off I'll tell ye, I do NOT abide
Poems without rhythm or rhyme;
to brand the likes of sech "poetry",
now that's a despisable crime.

For the poems of old was the poems of gold,
but now-days like trash they been tossed
in favor o' newfangled free verse an' sech
that's worth, in my book, less 'n dross.

Hell, west and crooked the varmints has gone
who has rustled the good ways of yore!
Sayin' that form is out-dated an' worn,
they commence to write blabber 'n bore!

An' they brand such rubbish as poetry?
Oh there's reprobates burnin' in hell
with a lot better sense than to cause sech offense
in corruptin' a fine art so well!

So yield not unto temptation my son,
an' know that you cain't do much worse
than to call sech a thang poetry, Lawrd,
'at ain't even got rhymes in the verse!

Next poem: Ethelbert on God’s Peace

Author: Jerry Dan Deutschendorf
from: Red Earth Whisperings
Part II: The Old Timer