To Shakespeare in 1964
Return, sweet Bard, the time is overripe
For thine appearance now on television,
To settle sundry hashes, cook some tripe.
And help the Bacon board to a decision.
Thou, who didst conjure love-sick Romeo,
And gloomy Hamlet's mixed-up moods and spleens
Could surely tell us all we want to know
About the Beatles and the screaming `teens.
Thou, who the line so nicely learnt to draw
'Twixt bawdy jest and nobler sentiment,
Shed thy sane light on the censorial law
Dividing literature from sediment,
All books by lesser men about thee writ,
Review them now with thy far nimbler wit.
Una Montgomery
1964