[psychologicalshock]

Originally Posted by Sándor Petőfi

The question was rhetorical.

I think this quote describes my position in the matter of English poetry quite well.

Orwell 1984

There was a sound of marching boots outside. The steel door opened with a clang. A young officer, a
trim black-uniformed figure who seemed to glitter all over with polished leather, and whose pale, straightfeatured
face was like a wax mask, stepped smartly through the doorway. He motioned to the guards outside
to bring in the prisoner they were leading. The poet Ampleforth shambled into the cell. The door clanged
shut again.
Ampleforth made one or two uncertain movements from side to side, as though having some idea that
there was another door to go out of, and then began to wander up and down the cell. He had not yet noticed
Winston’s presence. His troubled eyes were gazing at the wall about a metre above the level of Winston’s
head. He was shoeless; large, dirty toes were sticking out of the holes in his socks. He was also several
days away from a shave. A scrubby beard covered his face to the cheekbones, giving him an air of
ruffianism that went oddly with his large weak frame and nervous movements.
Winston roused himself a little from his lethargy. He must speak to Ampleforth, and risk the yell from
the telescreen. It was even conceivable that Ampleforth was the bearer of the razor blade.
‘Ampleforth,’ he said.
There was no yell from the telescreen. Ampleforth paused, mildly startled. His eyes focused themselves
slowly on Winston.
‘Ah, Smith!’ he said. ‘You too!’
‘What are you in for?’
‘To tell you the truth—‘ He sat down awkwardly on the bench opposite Winston. ‘There is only one
offence, is there not?’ he said.
‘And have you committed it?’
‘Apparently I have.’
He put a hand to his forehead and pressed his temples for a moment, as though trying to remember
something.
‘These things happen,’ he began vaguely. ‘I have been able to recall one instance -- a possible instance.
It was an indiscretion, undoubtedly. We were producing a definitive edition of the poems of Kipling. I
allowed the word “God” to remain at the end of a line. I could not help it!’ he added almost indignantly,
raising his face to look at Winston. ‘It was impossible to change the line. The rhyme was “rod”. Do you
realize that there are only twelve rhymes to “rod” in the entire language? For days I had racked my brains.
There was no other rhyme.’
The expression on his face changed. The annoyance passed out of it and for a moment he looked almost
pleased. A sort of intellectual warmth, the joy of the pedant who has found out some useless fact, shone
through the dirt and scrubby hair.
‘Has it ever occurred to you,’ he said, ‘that the whole history of English poetry has been determined by
the fact that the English language lacks rhymes?’
No, that particular thought had never occurred to Winston. Nor, in the circumstances, did it strike him as
very important or interesting.

I have to say that I can find more Russian poems that I have a liking for than English ones.