The Most Frightening Thing About Blank Verse --

-- Is that it can write itself.

As any temple deity can deem,
The world is not an oyster, but a pearl:
A pendant seed, tormented by the tides
And false alarums of the tyrant, Time.
Five billion years of battering have creased
And cratered all the faces of this globe,
And as the seedling wavers on its pole,
The seasons and the sufferings go on.
Pain is every earthquake; every flood,
A shame to us who cower in the night
While human brethren gambol in the day.
And yet we plead for knowledge of this place,
As we might plead for serpents of Saigon
And wish to end all writhing in the dust;
Let learning lend them legs. And so to us,
Non-reptiles, yet as worthy of up-rise
And elevated locomotion's prize.

I wrote that in less than five minutes, but don't worry: the ambulance is on its way.