April 23, 2008

Happy Birthday

Nor shall Death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grows't:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

~William Shakespeare

2 comments:

Grammarian@mindspring.com said...

A Classical Complaint

The form is much too stiff and too old-fashioned
It doesn’t let creative juices flow
It seems to me for poems to be impassioned
They have to go wherever they may go

The lines are just too long for normal speech
Nobody talks—or writes—with such design
I have to stuff in extra words to reach
The end of every pentametric line

I hate to say it, but I’ve always found
The sentiments expressed to be unpleasant
I’ve never heard of one that didn’t sound
Like some pathetic love-starved adolescent

When I take paper and set pen upon it
I’ll write most anything—except a sonnet

(C) Lawrence A. Herman

Jim Donahue said...

Lawrence A Herman is not to be confused with Lawrence The Herman.