Poet Proclamation

[Regn]

I read it like this:

Once upon a time men would stand in the streets
The poets and philosophers of thought and speech
Called to town square to share with those despaired
A message from beyond and elsewhere

or

Once upon a time men crowded the streets
To hear poets and philosophers speak
Of a hope from beyond and elsewhere
That would cure all their hearts of despair

Or something like that. The second one should be grammatically correct and all but makes the whole reading experience dull (The way I edited it is what made it dull is what I intend to say).

I'm not too comfortable handing out critique since I'm not confident in my own abilities, so I'll just leave with saying that I liked the way you made it sound. Too many line breaks made it difficult to see when it rhymed, though.