Shakespeare Birthplace Trust

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On Visiting Shakespeare's Birthplace

Hi I am Simon Cartlidge and I wanted to thank everyone at the trust for the most amazing day we had in Stratford visiting the houses. As a thank you I just wanted to share with you the poem I wrote inspired by the day called, fittingly enough; "On Visiting Shakespeare's Birthplace".


In reverence I cross the boarded floor
(This hallowed chamber I near fear to tread)
And glimpse the ancient manger, oaken carved
Wherein John Shakespeare's babe once laid his head.

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I see the boy within these timber halls
As time peels back the heavy veil of years,
At play through laughing innocence unbound
Life's lessons learned, both happiness and tears.

Oh Bard! Were you most Arden from the first?
How formed your mind, what influence this space?
How much your father's son, or was it more
This genius inspired by God's own grace?

Did you from cradle call with infant tongue,
Not yet apprenticed to fair England's speech,
In verse that you alone could comprehend
Prince Hal's sweet cry; "Once more unto the breech"?

More worthy men have passed this aged frame,
Yet now I ask in truth who would deny
That Keats and Dickens stood and stared in awe â?¦
Though pondered thoughts far more profound than I?