22/02/2025
If there was no Shakespeare
If there was no Shakespeare, a world would sleep,
Where words like starlight, secrets used to keep.
No Hamlet's shadow, pacing castle stone,
No Juliet's garden, where young love had grown.
No Rosalind's wit, in Arden's leafy maze,
No tempest's fury, in the ocean's haze.
No Macbeth's ambition, a blood-stained, hollow crown,
No Othello's torment, where green-eyed fears drown.
The stage would be silent, a canvas stark and bare,
No "To be or not to be," hanging in the air.
No sonnets whispered, with passion's gentle art,
No histories echoed, tearing worlds apart.
No fools would jest, with wisdom's hidden sting,
No lovers sigh, where nightingales would sing.
No kings would tremble, at conscience's dark call,
No villains plotted, to make empires fall.
The English tongue, a lesser thing would be,
Deprived of music, and its majesty.
A world of stories, left untold and dim,
If Shakespeare's genius, had never flowed from him.
