…closer to ‘learned’ Chaucer, ‘
said Basse to ‘Renowned’ Spencer;
‘and you to Spencer,
‘rare’ Beaumont.
‘Make room in your tomb for Shakespeare,
‘To lodge all four in one bed’…
…for equal fame.’ (Not
for hanky-panky or thrift.)
To sell the request:
‘Not between now and doomsday,
will there likely be need
to fit in a famous fift.’
A suggestion of the demise of poetry,
to be sure.
But Basse left off the ‘h’,
instead of ‘shifth’, to say ‘shift’.
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