Finally!

This villanelle is hard to write.
My rhyming skills are very weak.
I fear I’ll be at this all night.

Did other poets find delight
In repetitious double – speak?
This villanelle is hard to write.

Did Eliot find this form too trite
To frame his lines, so stern, so bleak?
I fear I’ll be at this all night.

Or Billy Collins’ pen take flight
And use three lines to show some cheek?
This villanelle is hard to write.

Dante’s terza rima might
Lend itself without a tweak –
I fear I’ll be at this all night.

This form looks simple, black and white,
And I’ve been struggling for a week.
This villanelle is hard to write.
I fear I’ll be at this all night.

---Ed Bennett