Saturday, April 28, 2007

What is Poetry Month without the Bard?

Poetry month is almost over and what is poetry in English without Shakespeare? The picture here may or may not be William as a young man, just a April 23 may or may not be his birthday. So much we don't know about the Bard? What we most of all do not know -- and will never know -- is what factors combined to create his incredible insight into the human psyche and combine it with the gracefulness of Elizabethan English to give us so much beauty and wonder to enjoy and ponder. It's almost impossible to choose any bit to quote ... chosen, almost at random, here are just a few lines from Sonnet 30's opening and its end:

When to the session of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrances of things past
I sigh the lack of many things sought,
and with old woes new wail my dear times' waste
...
but if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
all losses are restor'd and sorrows end.

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