I think, Faldage and Helen, the problem presented in the couplet in question was one of "it"--when to pronounce "it" as "it," for instance, and when to pronounce it "ite" to rhyme with "night." Take a look at the four lines again:
Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
OK. We've got the long "i" in "spikey"--right? And we've got the long "i" in crazy ol' "Psyche"--right?
But then we've got the short "i" in "wits" and "grits"--but then we've got the long "i" in "writing"--which just mixes up the whole "it" configuration--with that long "i."
In other words, the pronunciation rules are driving the versifier in question a bit crazy:
Psyche
Writing
grits
wits
spikey
...when to use the long "i" and when to use the short "i"
And then there's the problem of writing (or should that be pronounced "writting" thinks the poor versifier) the word "groats"--which has the extra "a" in it. The poor versifier is really thinking, "Why shouldn't groats be spelled 'grots' and why shouldn't grits be pronounced 'grytes'?" Or something like that.
I don't like this poem personally, but that's just a matter of taste. I tend not to be very crazy about things that rhyme unless they're done pretty masterfully. However, I think that the pronoununciation/spelling problem is what the poet above is getting at--you know, the inconsistency. The very lazy brain wanting a very easy way to slosh through the language. "Grimm's Law" as Hardy describes it in "Jude."
