Friday 28 December 2007

A Suitable Sonnet from William Shakespeare

Searching for the best words to express utter disgust and repugnance at the latest barbaric outrage Poet-in-Residence can do no better than offer the attentive reader William Shakespeare's sonnet 129. Human blood, that precious life sustaining liquid, was spilled on a city street yesterday as casually as a bottle of wine knocked over by a drunk at a New Year's Eve party. The world's blood lust is a shame on mankind.

Sonnet CXXIX

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action, and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated as a swallowed bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad.

Mad in pursuit and in possession so,
Had, having and in quest, to have extreme,
A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe,
Before a joy proposed behind a dream.

All this the world well knows yet none knows well,
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

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