Steve Ihde. retired professor of art from EDMC,
Arlington, Virginia, United States
Could Ovid recognize his importance,
As he penned those lines in Rome, true, surely,
Would there ever have been any substance,
In verse so protracted, even when slowly,
From his muse, he might draw inspiration,
Her figure before him stately did stand,
Did quickly he see his situation,
Or, in remembrance view the poet’s land?
When Dante the Inferno made a sentence,
Whose gates he decidedly would tear down,
Should he have first requested some penance,
From emperor who sat without a crown,
Whose place would be so readily numbered,
As twelfth in his line with that faithful name,
Though in Avignon was where he slumbered,
His reach to Italy brought Dante shame.
Should William be the man who could so tell,
The ruin of dark Denmark’s Prince Hamlet,
Or cheer us with youthful lovers as well,
Then crush us in remorse with that pamphlet,
That was known between those actors on stage,
The men who played parts sometimes in a robe,
Sometimes we’re lovers, sometimes did they rage,
Thus London was treated in Shakespeare’s Globe.
Who are these minstrels of verse for today?
We suffocate from the dearth of the written word,
True greatness seems absent in written play,
We strut and we flourish with raucous chord,
Yet, where is the music of majestic verse,
Sonnets from the Portuguese, from Browning,
The high odes of Keats, who never was terse,
Or from poor Shelley’s pen, who died drowning?
We seek inspiration from these writers,
We study their lucid words and their rhyme,
If we may succeed, we must be fighters,
To shun torpid verse, create for all time