Old Shakespeare was an educated bloke,

well known for knowing how to turn a phrase,

and oft-times would insert a little joke

when writing all those celebrated plays;

so when a scene became a trifle terse

he’d sneak a laugh among the metered verse.

 

And also, for you English language nerds,

he was a neologist on the sly,

inventing a whole slew of brand new words

used regularly now by you and I,

like horrid, frugal, lonely and obscene,

familiar now so we know what they mean.

 

Those phrases that I mentioned, by the by,

have entered into common usage too.

The green-eyed monster may well make you cry,

and twist your heart till you are feeling blue.

His writing brought a sea change to our tongue;

no wonder then his praises are oft-sung.

 

The poems that he wrote are famous now

with scads of sonnets flooding from his quill

so eloquently it turns out somehow

they named the English version after Will;

and to this day young men are heard to say

shall I compare thee to a summer’s day.

 

The Bard begat another form of rhyme,

an epic tale expressly to narrate

of Venus and Adonis, so in time

the eponymic naming was its fate;

So students when they then aspired to write

must get the meter and the iambs right.