If poetry be the food of love, write less;
One glance … ’tis ’nough to shun the bravest heart!
These blessed scrolls do only cause more stress;
If more be read, then minds be blown apart.
And you, dear Bard, thy life hath one dark taint;
O, swan of Avon (nothing like a saint),
Thy lack of chastity and of restraint
Express’d thy Will with far more than a feint.
Yet now, I see the cunning and beauty,
And though thy language art a toilsome pain—
Thy hallow’d work—I show idolatry,
And thus, with this, thy style I hope to gain.
About thy lovers, we just hath to bear;
With them, thou bear’st us these that art so rare. ▲
Thy thirty-seven and one fifty-four,
Against the will of Time, still unsurpass’d;
Thy crafty plays of words, one must adore,
And he who reads them art enriched—yea, bless’d.
We yearn to learn of the immortal man,
And yet, of thee, we know not much to-day;
Four hundred years this knowledge had to span!
When Time hath given, Time must take away.
No breathing creature know’th of thy true self:
Art thou one man or many with one name?
Perhaps a lady or the Earl himself?
And are these true or were they just for fame?
For with thine image died thy history,
But ever still, thy work’s thy legacy. ▲