Today is the 400th anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare's sonnets, of which he has 150 or so. I can imagine the weekend 400 years ago, all the Londoners sitting on the banks of the Thames, reading and reading and reading, and occasionally one maybe shouting after running up on something that really hit the the Old World nail on the English head.
"Hey, have you read CXI yet?"
"No, but it can't be better than XVIV!"
"Bill rocks!"
I like my Bill. I can't remember the number of the sonnet and I should, but a few lines down it goes something like...
"Love is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.
(And then something else,
and something else, and
I can't remember, but I think something else, and...)
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come...
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom."
That's a piece of a sonnet, at least. The point is, Bill really got in there and tried.
I'd ask you to send me your favorite sonnet but, on such a beautiful day, that would be an inane request. And I've got to write some other stuff right now anyway, some non-rhyming stuff. Meanwhile, happy anniversary to Shakespeare's sonnets. Which is easy for me to say; I dont' have to take a Lit final this week.
