A Brakspearean
Sonnet (Poem)
From
St. Louis to tour England I came.
Our trip was brief; the coach kept on the
go.
In Stratford, houses stood of special
fame,
Though their significance I still
don’t know.
Anne Hathaway’s was one we drove on
past,
Then Mary Arden’s home came into
view.
I think our guide said Brakspear’s
was the last.
Who all these people were, I never knew.
Brakspear, I later learned, brewed
English beers.
A stop for lunch at his small pub was
planned.
The taste of one drawn pint confirmed my
fears:
T'was warm and flat like ales in all
England!
The Brits should visit my home town to
see
Real beer at the Budweiser Brewery.
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Footnotes:
1 - Stratford
upon Avon, England, was the birthplace and home
of William Shakespeare.
2 - Anne
Hathaway was the wife of William Shakespeare.
3 - Mary Arden
was the mother of William Shakespeare.
4 - Brakspear
is an English brewer. The modern brewery is in
Witney, Oxfordshire. Witney is just forty miles
from Stratford upon Avon, and the Brakspear
Brewery supplies to pubs in that area.
5 - The
original Budweiser Brewery is in St. Louis,
Missouri, USA.
6 - The poetic
form above is a Shakespearean, or English sonnet.
This consists of fourteen lines, each containing
ten syllables. Each line is written in iambic
pentameter which is a pattern of an unstressed
syllable followed by a stressed syllable,
repeated five times. The rhyme scheme is ABAB
CDCD EFEF GG in which the last two lines are a
rhyming couplet.
7 - William
Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets.
8 - In 1557
John Shakespeare, the father of William
Shakespeare, obtained Public Office when he was
elected as ale-taster of the Borough of Stratford.
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Images
© Mr Dwight C. Ewing Jnr. of St. Louis, Missouri,
USA
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Anne
Hathaway's Cottage
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Mary
Arden's House
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Palmer's
Farm
Palmer's
Farm is a building adjacent to Mary Arden's
House which, until recently, was believed
to be Mary Arden's House.
It is much prettier and more romantic
than Mary Arden's real, boring, red brick
property, above, and experts believe that
the truth about these properties should
have been suppressed.
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