Strophe Striphe

Strophe Striphe, or, Period Pain: Being a Simple Moral Tale About Grammar in Ten (10) Stanzas and Upper and Lower Case

There was a little Sentence,
A sinful little Sentence,
That finally found its way
Through sin to true repentance:

This Sentence harboured, commas,
In ungrammatic, places;
& letters scattered through it
In lower & Upper cases;

& each few words were spiked
With hyphens, slashes, quotes;
With ~ tildes!, & ampersands, & ... dots,
& footnotes on footnotes;

But this sinful Sentence had
A problem which eclipses
Such ungrammatic profusion
Of (parenthesis) ... & ... ellipsis ...

It's fatal flaw was one
That would drive you round the bend,
For - to put it simply -
This sentence did not,
..................................would not,
....................................................could not
................................................................... END .....

It lacked a simple period
To separate its text;
To isolate its final word
From the first word of the next;

This Sentence, in its sin,
Ran on & on & on,
& on & on & on & on,
& on & on & on & on & on & on & on & on & on ....

God came along & saw
Its verbose misery,
& all at once! - picked up his pen! -
Before! - the words! - could flee! -

He set a simple dot among
A busy brace of slashes ////
Strokes - jots #, lines, spots ... colons: commas, CaSeS,
& d.a.n.c.i.n.g. stars *** and dashes:

& all at once, they disappeared,
Into the clear blue sky:
& the Sentence was a single word,
& that word was:

GOOD-BYE.

UPDATE!
An Ode to the Ampersand

O Ampersand, o Ampersand,
I'd like to sprinkle you on dampers and
Put you in picnic hampers and
Take you away in the camper van
To toast you with glasses of champers and
Other liquors of a celebratory variety,
O Ampersand.