Let’s see if I have got the lesson right

The first rule is the simple, easy, choice:

Poetic ardor requires discipline 

to make its body the writer’s own voice,

and its own features formulate the line.

Your mode of speech is what defines the meter,

the proper tone is what outs the cheater.

Rule number two requires that you must choose 

exactly how you govern proper time;

whether your verse is tight or very loose,

and whether it be blank, or strictly rhyme.

My own position is, to be quite terse,

allow the rhyme to govern every verse.

Once you have started, obey your own voice,

let nature organize both shape and form,

and guide you straight towards the proper choice

Choosing with care the vehicle of verse

removes the risk of the bad-rhyming curse.

The fourth rule is the easiest by far:

Use only formulas that promote song,

let musicality be your guidestar,

it shows you when your meter has gone wrong.

Take your good time to make sure it is right;

the meter and the meaning woven tight.

Now this is where the struggle becomes hard,

you’ve got to hold your Muse by hair or throat

your meter has to pace out every yard

while making sure you exclude each false note.

Determine how to keep each line as firm 

as possible to reach its proper term.

Here’s where the leather slams into the dirt:

Each word must come from the depths of your heart,

must echo you, but also not be curt,

that’s the first step towards making good art.

Your subjects, and the substance of your choice,

need only be supporters of your voice.

Once you begin, don’t be afraid to learn 

that feeling is your darkness brought to light;

that each and every bright poetic turn

is your heart’s effort to reject the night.

Each bruise of spirit, every mental scar.

is still the lodestone pointing to your star.

Don’t be astonished at finding the source 

of every product of poetic art 

is keeping soul and body from divorce:

There is no abstract notion of the heart.

What you expose, the horrors that you feel,

are thoroughly material and real.

Your vision is the bit that’s hard to find,

armies of false perception to defeat,

soul is both more and less than normal mind,

and good verse balances both thought and meat.

This is when you should descry bright and clear 

that every breath is part of wider air.

The rules aren’t magical, they’re simply tools

to guide your mind along its proper road.

They keep apart the craftsmen and the fools,

and get us to distinguish lion from toad.

Once you’ve discovered no need to despair 

your heart awakens in the normal air.

There’s no more guidance, you map the terrain 

of every world imagined into life

by the authority of your firm brain,

and the solution to your inner strife.

All’s up to you, behold your starting hour,

go forth and demonstrate your heart and power.

Some sort of envoi seems to be required:

Recall that thought and mind never get tired.