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Hours and hours today I squandered...
Here a glover’s son once wandered,
Squinting at the splayed, half-timbered
Canted, tilted, caved, lilt-limbered
Dwelling house, its yard and portal
Mary’s son long made immortal—
From these doors came William, strolling,
Sharp eyes in fine frenzy rolling,
Babbling from the Muse’s lottery,
Cock-a-hoop to woo in Shottery,
Then to rue his lot at leisure,
London players, Fortune’s pleasure,
Fate the bow and Wit the quiver...
Bless these streets,
this town,
this river!
Using a much later (and lesser - we are all lesser) poet’s meter, ‘Margarét, áre you gríeving / Over Goldengrove unleaving?’ I write of another. The world is full of wonders, but the works of William Shakespeare defy belief that any single man could have composed them. As to Gerald Manley Hopkins, once I had deciphered his idiosyncrasies, his work grew on me as the years passed— and more than one poet has said the same. Any man who can invent a word like ‘wanwood’ gets my vote, ‘sprung-rhyme’ or not!
