Poem by Christopher Morley

Pedometer

My thoughts beat out in sonnets while I walk,
And every evening on the homeward street
I find the rhythm of my marching feet
Throbs into verses (though the rhyme may balk.)
I think the sonneteers were walking men:
The form is dour and rigid, like a clamp,
But with the swing of legs the tramp, tramp, tramp
Of syllables begins to thud, and then—
Lo! while you seek a rhyme for hook or crook
Vanished your shabby coat, and you are kith
To all great walk-and-singers—Meredith,
And Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Keats, and Rupert Brooke!
Free verse is poor for walking, but a sonnet—
O marvellous to stride and brood upon it!

1. To a Grandmother
2. Ars Dura
3. Washing the Dishes
4. The Commercial Traveller
5. A Handful of Sonnets

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