WHICH IMMORTAL BARD?

Who is the Immortal Bard?

Great name, or great personage,

Of renown, remembered in word.

Is Shakespeare the flower of England,

Or Chaucer, Milton, or some other lord?

How shall he be called, by what name or token?

By all whose verse are such as those oft spoken.

Each Nation honours its poets,

Whose philosophy set a good light,

To reflect upon their superiority in motet;

Where praises support their right,

To command, or commandeer privilege,

Beyond earned or relative insight,

To take, to possess without grace, in sacrilege.

Scotland recognizes its own son,

Fetes him on each anniversary,

By an address to the haggis,

Accompanied by the pipes a'glee.

Affectionately calls him Robbie;

His praises, the words of empathy,

Best spoken by his lowland ancestry.

May old acquaintance gather,

At that honoured day in January,

Where every Scot worth his salt,

Will sup his poor whisky malt,

The pure and crispness of clear air,

From loch and tarn will make its mark,

And old years will pass much faster.

Poets are philosophers, historians and prophets!

Their words the image of the past, present, future;

Historical, topical and visionary in epithet,

Record and chastise Man and his nature.

For his unforgiven and penurious stance,

Waiting for the day whereupon he may mature:

Where action the choice of fate not chance!

How long of a life does the Poet have?

Shall he be accomplished by a legacy,

Of words written and discarded unread,

Committed to the depth and darkness of the grave?

Shall sentiment reach out and relive,

Each echo, a pulse to reverberate?

Immortality, penned, released and more alive.