John Quincy Adams Seduced by Ottava Rima

I walked this morning to the race-groundMusing Dermot as I went and cameI read Lord Byron’s Vision of JudgmentTo examine his use of the measureThe most delightful of all measures:A continual coruscation of thoughtA perpetual repetition of antithesisA power of poetic inversionA prosaic and colloquial languageRhymes of double and treble terminationsA prodigal use of the caesuraA species of verse almost dissolved into prose

(journal entry, 1831, noticed by Peter Manning, rendered into poetry by SW, 2019)