Poetry: A Paradigm

Poetry, that deep and vast repository
Wherein all writers put,
Forthwith and forsooth,
All their ideas, good and bad;
Their philosophies, their ardors,
And even so (as always)
Find space for more expressions,
Bold or bland, to endure.

In poetry expressed, the author's words
Are set apart as ornaments
To meter, to form, and to scansion;
Wider here, narrower there,
With each semantic import
(Weighted heavily, of course)
Adapted to the moment,
Reflective of the mood.

Within these strictured lines, fenced and boxed,
Lies each bit which their English teachers
Once forbade, forevermore and always,
As sins too great for penance,
Piety notwithstanding;
And which, for lack of better spots
In fable and parable (parenthetically),
Went unused, excesses;
In poetry, as in no other civilized domain,
Rest the extraneous commas, colons, ellipses and semicolons
Once excised (with force, of course)
From the writer's better prose.