In response to my poetic follow-up to the posting
about the ARBR TROLL poem, LioNiNoiL wrote:

With apologies to John Donne...

As part of the fun for this topic, I've stirred in
A rich mix of metaphors: phrases I've heard in
An internet forum, some Aesop, some Hugo,
John Donne, Dr. Seuss, an ad slogan from Yugo,
A bold allegorical style (more like Dante's,
I hope, than like Hawthorne's), a touch of Cervantes,
Mad Magazine, vintage TV, Stephen King,
Song lyrics that date from the era of swing.
A tapestry, wonderf'ly crafted and woven,
Inspired by a muse - who has hooves sharp and cloven.
Oh yes, I confess: when you get right down to it,
I'M NICE - but the Devil hisself made me do it!

A Quick Quiz, begininning with a phrase association:

STIMULUS: For whom the bell tolls
RESPONSE: Most likely Ernest Hemingway; or given the age
and perverse predilections of some of our members... uh, I
mean newsgroup readers, maybe Ingrid Bergman or Gary Cooper,
depending of course... But yes, in fact the phrase dates back
at least to the early 17th century and cleric John Donne.

QUESTION: What do you call a poem that doesn't rhyme?
ANSWER: Prose - usually containing bad grammar and too many
line breaks.

Case in point:

No man is an island, entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main...
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know
For whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

Although most folks today think of this as a poem, it is
actually only a brief excerpt from a distinctly prosaic
Anglican devotional. Most often now, it's printed, as it
is above, even with a sentence omitted from the middle -
perhaps because it's a bit too blatantly Eurocentric for
contemporary, meticulously politically correct American
educational doctrine?

ANNOUNCER'S VOICE-OVER: This concludes today's episode of
'Cultural Tidbits from a Redneck Engineer'. We now return
to our irregularly scheduled programming.

Wayne