Shakespeare

A monarch of playwrights thou art in truth
King of English poets for all time.
Lover of Nature and master of rhyme
Dead, but alive as long as man liveth.

None but thee hath ever found tongues in trees
Books in running brooks and sermons in stones
Verily thou hast read well the degrees
Of human thought by thy mind’s touchstone.

From flower to fruit and from bird to beast
From man in the street to the man of state
From child to man in his stages seven
Thou halt left nothing unadorned in thy ken.

Philosopher thou art with fancies soaring
Into regions known and unknown to man
Seer and saint with high feelings showing.
The type of man thou art whom none can scan.

None knows better than thou. Oh great poet,
How to select the characters and themes
To have a popular approach, albeit,
To the open-air stage of your times;

Men and matters move on with equal ease
From beginning to the end of thy plays
They all are true to life in every phase
Well coined in thy fertile brain always.

Is not it strange that centuries after
Thy death, some men should doubt the authorship
Of plays called yours till now, Oh great master,
Better we honour thy great scholarship
Than to bother about thy ownership.

In vain we look to thee for thy message
At this time of a woeful world cleavage
When man wants to have tooth for tooth and eye
For eye, for which he is ready to die.

Bard of the past, present and the future
Who hast heard the music of the spheres
Kindle new light and love in all of us
And accept our humble homage with rapture.