Shakespeare

“On it like a sonnet” as Shakespeare used to say. Or maybe not, who knows? Ah, that brilliant writer of the great and beautiful English language, now 400 years departed, and in commemoration I have found a sonnet with which I can associate, working at an outdoor centre.

Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
Even so my sun one early morn did shine,
With all triumphant splendour on my brow;
But out! Alack! He was but one hour mine,
The region cloud hath mask’d him from me now.
     Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;
     Suns of the world may stain when heaven’s sun staineth.