"God and nature do not work together in vain”

[Sadstguy]

I'm an old school guy, and I do like the challenge of writing verse on a specific meter. Free verse is pretty much the name of the game today, but I still enjoy reading an old-fashioned ode or ballad stanza or iambic pentameter sonnet, so I would have tried to write it on such a meter with a rhyming scheme. Perhaps a Keatsian ode form would have been a good format for your verse. Just my 2c.

I'm an old-school guy, too...and in fact, much of the stuff that's popular today isn't even true free verse!  I seem most effective with Italian sonnets, as long as you don't mind occasional enjambment.  But unfortunately, much of my work has been published previously, such that my pseudanonymity would be compromised by putting it here...and I can't seem to write a new sonnet if my life depended on it! (WAIT!  Maybe that's the reason!  What if my DEATH depended on it!  )

I must admit, however, that as old-school as I am, I can't stick with Robert Browning...EBB is more my style, and, yes, I love Sonnets from The Portuguese.  I hope you don't think me less manly.    Oh, and I love Taylor Mali, also.  (appropriate ones: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnOrrknTxbI or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCNIBV87wV4 )

I'm going to look into reworking into a Keatsian ode.  Thanks for that suggestion.  I greatly appreciate it!

--S