Changed

Here, for no particular reason, is a poem by Charles Stuart Calverley which perfectly demonstrates what Pope called the art of sinking in poetry – also the perils of ending a stanza with a two-syllable line. Changed I know not why my soul is rack'd: Why I ne'er smile as was my wont: I only know that, as a fact, I don't. I used to roam o'er glen and glade Buoyant and blithe as other folk: And not unfrequently I made A joke. A minstrel's fire within me burn'd. I'd sing, as one whose heart must break, Lay upon lay: I nearly learn'd To shake. All day I sang; of love, of fame, Of fights our fathers fought of yore, Until the thing almost became A bore. I cannot sing the old songs now! It is not that I deem then low; 'Tis that I can't remember how They go. I could not range the hills till high Above me stood the summer moon: And as to dancing, I could fly As soon. The sports, to which with boyish glee I sprang erewhile, attract no more; Although I am but sixty-three Or four. Nay, worse than…