Classic Poem

Today, I sat me down to ponder
Why I write like this:
Four metric feet, first line of text,
And three feet in the next.
This sing-song meter ambles on
From line to line, and then,
A rhyme is put, delightfully,
To have the stanza end.

From where the rhythm and the style?
From where I caught the rhyme?
I thought back to my schooling days,
And poem-reading time.

Ancient Mariner is one
That I remember well:
Its rhyme and rhythm still come through,
As clearly as a bell:

Then, Shakespeare and the other greats,
Who wrote iambic lines,
Influenced me so subtly,
Their style, my pen defines.

'America the Beautiful'
Has meter, style, and grace;
And most of us are wondered by
Its thoughtful, moving pace.
This four-feet, three-feet meter fits
So well in verse or song,
We memorize it easily
And sense it when it's wrong.

It's this bound verse that captured me,
Poetic pen and all:
It's why I write iambic lines,
And have myself a ball.

This iambic tetrameter,
Trimeter in line two:
I write it for the pleasure
And enjoyment given you,,,,
And me!