There’s form and function, farm and factory, rules and regula-ations
No rhyme or reason; feast or famine, trials and tribula-ations.
There’s rough and ready, rags to riches, rock and roll, down and dirty
And dine and dash, and check or cash, and drunken and disorderly.

For king and country, hearth and home, love it or leave it, bull or bear
And wild and woolly, weeping wailing, whys and wherefores, wash and wear
There’s prince and pauper, publish-perish, longitude and latitude
And odds and evens, wax and wane, and hoot and holler, rude and crude.

And live and learn, last but not least, and lend and lease, and life and limb
Safe and secure, and search and seizure, signs and symptoms, sink or swim
Sugar and spice, and Stars and Stripes, and sticks and stones, and sights and sounds
And hale and hearty, helter-skelter, Heaven Hell, and horse and hounds.

There’s flora fauna, fun and frolic, fin and fur, forgive forget
Over and out, and twist and shout, and tit for tat, aid and abet
And Jew and Gentile, dribs and drabs, dead or alive, and juke and jive
And my way or the highway, hush-hush, bed and breakfast, drink and drive.

There’s part and parcel, pen and paper, post and pillar, pig in poke
And rant and rave, and bread and butter, mix and match, and smoke and joke
Last will and testament, pell-mell, flip-flop, footloose and fancy-free,
Deny his due to devil, day-in day-out, and the deep blue sea.

Nieces and nephews, peas in pod, kit and caboodle, meek and mild
And ghosts and goblins, trick or treat, witches and warlocks, wet and wild
And rest and relaxation, birds and bees, thick thin and tic-tac-toe
And fender-bender, fair or foul, and spick and span, and friend or foe.

The order of paired elements - important? yes, no, may-aybe;
Be careful not to throw out the bathwater with the ba-aby.

Yet, slip and slide, not hair nor hide, the definition gets defied,
Like 'Prejudice' before the 'Pride', so 'side by side' is classified
With home sweet home, rose is a rose, eye for an eye, and nose to nose -
These phrases pose the gap to close that spaces poetry from prose.

There's Jack and Jill, day after day, bumper to bumper, inch by inch,
And heart to heart, mile after mile, with salt and pepper, just a pinch.
What's right is right, what's fair is fair, said more and more by Mo-other,
From sea to shining sea, if it's not one thing, it's ano-other.