90s: I am delighted that this caught your interest. As it happens, English, by its very nature, is an accentual-syllabic language. The word ”*po*etry“has three syllables and usually one stress at the beginning.
You’ve got a lot of the stresses correct in your limerick; but the last line is forced. If you had written, To find that his dream had come true, the scansion or counting of beats works better.
And the meter is; one iamb (There once) and two anapests (was a man) (from Pe ru)
An anapest is two unstressed beats followed by one stress. The opposite is a dactyl; two stressed beats followed by one unstressed; viz; Jac que linehttp://www.world-class-poetry.com/The-Sonnet-Form.html Ken ne dy. This all gets very complicated. You’re on your own now, kid.
Here’s an example of a poem I love, very different than a sonnet, by Charles Bukowski, a drunk and vagabond.
———————————————
The way it is now -
I’ll tell you
I’ve lived with some gorgeous women
and I was so bewitched by those
beautiful creatures that
my eyebrows twitched.
but I’d rather drive to New York
backwards
than to live with any of them
again.
the next classic stupidity
will be the history
of those fellows
who inherit my female
legacies.
in their case
as in mine
they will find
that madness
is caused by not
being often enough
alone.