Tuesday, August 05, 2003

Rime Royal pain in the *


Well now, I've gone and done it, following my relatively successful rime royal debut in Friday's post below), a masterful poet named Lorenzo, wrote his own* I followed with a hasty note to him

>Lorenzo, yes, your rime-royal sure was
>A thing of beauty, worthy of the best,
>So if you don't get a rest, who does?
>In fact, I'm hoping others take the test,
>And gain respect (more than they would have guessed)
>For Lucrece's rime, and what was meant
>By ending it: "everlasting banishment."

which I have since revised and posted and when I get will place it here.

Although my first attempt at rime royal below met with favorable reviews, Lorenzo answered the one above brilliantly, and in doing so, raised the bar to a whole new level.

Lorenzo wrote:

That is a poser, and I s'pose you mean
To promulgate anew your idee fixe
Wherein Kit Marlowe's absenting the scene
In fifteen ninety-three was rigged: that reeks!
If that old theory caulks your boat, she leaks.
Soggier still's the dampy-handed style
With which you angle now, sir, to beguile.

Debauched, amoral, irreligious cuss -
Young Kit was many things. Young Kyd, alack,
Once advertised unto the world just thus;
Of course, he did so writhing on the rack,
And if he could he might have ta'en it back,
E'en as young Kit, if he but could, might say,
"OK! I'll pay! Frize! Lay thy dirk away!"

But no. No recantation (that's for Bob,
Our English whiz, neologistic branch,
Who thinks who favors nobles be a snob.
He's quite a card. Meanwhile, back at the ranch...)
Forthcame, no word from Tom, nor else, to stanch
The bleeding reputation of the man
Who fell to earth there nigh the Deptford Strand.

The Kitster was a rowdy, rockin' chap,
As those who knew him ne'er have e'er denied,
And tragic as his themes, so too his hap,
In sooth, the legend's yet to be belied:
Ah, Davey, Davey, Davey - Marlowe died.
Was banished to the fires of Hell, I guess,
Assuming they'd accept such sorry mess.

But banished from the realm? As Tarquin was?
For what? By whom? His friends of high estate?
To spare him from himself? I see no cause,
To think this was the great playmaker's fate.
Go to. I think the guy was born too late
To write the works of Shake-speare anyway,
All mostly born before he died, I say.

There is a one, another, that we know,
Who sundry times for reasons right and wrong
Was banished from the court, flat told to go
His ways apart and separate from the throng
About the throne, and so arose a song,
Nay, sev'ral, in lament of said disgrace
You seem to hold as pert'nent to your case.

Well, it seems evident to me that you
Stand ready here to make a crafty speech,
So I will ease back in my cushy pew
To hear the sermon you must needs now preach.
And though I'm sure it's sure to be a reach,
Yet, here's a line wherewith to improvise:
"My friends, 'tis said a bad weed never dies..."

I repied to him in verse today, but since I didn't save it to my hard drive it is currently "out there" in cyberspace via Google newsgroup service, queued for posting.

scuse me, i've got some verse to write.

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