A ballad

[milo]

Hi Milo
that's highly constructive criticism - thanks. I handn't spotted 'on' v. 'upon' I actually broke the meter there unintentionally).

Insofar as this  was _thought out_ at all, the 'naught else?' was there to have shock effect (the challenge) so breaking the meter seened the right thing to do. Maybe it doesn't work?

I don't understand that "nought" is 'affectation' - I'd need a solid definition form you. I always thought (and still do) that affectation is intentional artifice in an attempt to indicate unjustified status (ostentatious display - OED) - whereas I was just using a word that came naturally to me. I'm worried by notable tendency for literary folk to ban perfectly good words outright (I found a list of such a while back on the web - 111 perfectly ordainary words that would have written of most of our notable poets from Shakespere to Robert Frost, but cited as 'not to be used in any form'). Surely language is supposed to grow, not shrink!

It, like "upon" creates phrasing only used in poetry. I have no problem with either, I just used it as an argument against my own premise