I think that I shall never see
a graph more lovely than a tree.
A tree whose crucial property
is loop-free connectivity.
A tree that must be sure to span
so packet can reach every LAN.
First, the root must be selected.
By ID, it is elected.
Least-cost paths from root are traced.
In the tree, these paths are placed.
A mesh is made by folks like me,
then bridges find a spanning tree.
Radia Perlman
I was liking it too, until the abrupt meter change in line 7. People almost invariably mess up the meter when writing this kind of verse. It's a hallmark of tone-deafness, or whatever the equivalent is for rhythym. For anyone who is paying attention, it spoils the effect.
But then I noticed something surprising. Yes, the meter changes abruptly from iambic to trochaic at line 7, i.e. the stress goes from even syllables ("I think that I shall never see") to odd ones ("First the root must be selected.") However, the shift is executed perfectly: the meter is a steadfast trochee for four lines and then reverts to iamb for the final couplet.
Accident? I doubt it. Each of the four trochaic lines is a complete sentence. The iambic lines all have exactly one sentence per two lines. No, this is the rare case where the writer knows exactly what she is doing. Bravo Radia Perlman!
Well spotted. Also, the four trochaic lines list the steps of the tree-building process, and the iambic couplets explain the purpose of it all. She's using meter to reflect a semantic division.
Algorhyme