The Versifier's Curse

Constrained by rhymes, the writer of verse my well err from the straight path like a hiker to whose clothes things cling as would a burr, like a tramp at whose heels there slinks a dog that stinks. From this well-thumbed rhyming dictionary, you may infer that inspiration needs the occasional prod. How odd! Even to those who claim her as a friend the Muse of poetry and verse sometimes has lips as open as a miser`s purse. O, say, in Heaven’s name, what gain has even lain in the fact that the verb "to blur" rhymes with a noun like "myrrh"? Just for the merriment try this experiment. Say to the first person you meet on a bus. "'Scuse me, Sir!" (or maybe "Lady"), "Say, I pray, why fat cats so often purr." Try this out, and you'll aver that while sense and rhyme sometimes concur, it is not invariably the case, and would the world not be a duller place, if - perish the thought - it were?