©2004 Harvey H. Warwick III

So what’s the deal with Shakespeare anyway?
Pentameter iambic’s not so hard.
If I wrote some, could I, too, be a bard?
I shall expound upon this, if I may.
The major differences that I see
Between a Shakespeare sonnet and a play:
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day”
Contains more rhyme in it than Richard Three.
Though when it comes to length, the play’s the thing.
I’ve heard he was a product of his time:
Did people back then really speak in rhyme?
Was that, perchance, how one addressed the king:
“Good day, your majesty, God save you, sire.
It is my duty, also my delight
To serve Sir Percival, your faithful knight.
I am Northumberland, his humble squire.”
Or even to another commoner,
“What ho, good fellow, tell me now the news.
Hast come across some evidence or clues?
It is to Percival that I refer.”
Anachronisms in his work abound:
Had those men plotting Caesar’s murder got
Some hats to hide their faces? I think not;
Yet many such examples there are found.
And is there any truth to that old tale
That Shakespeare merely was a pseudonym
Used by Christopher Marlowe? No, not him;
Another urban legend that’s gone stale.
And yet, what if it were a pseudonym?
What if some unknown work had come to light
That Shakespeare signed, but which I wrote last night?
If I could write it right, I could be him!
Yet such a hoax I could not perpetrate;
Nobody would believe it. What’s the use?
Besides, my taste runs more to Dr. Seuss.
If I could write like him, then I’d be great!