On National Poetry Day, let us express our gratitude to the greatest!

To Shakespeare - Thanks for 'ROMEO & JULIET'

And did you grieve
For strutting Elizabethans' young lives wasted?
Deaths that leave
Our hearts robbed, bitter for life half-tasted:

The gaps unfilled
For sparkling Mercutio and rash young Tybalt.
Fiery nothings spilled
Easy young blood. Now the world limps, crippled.

Grief that won't sleep:
Black boulder filling the heart's pool:
Silver rings keep
Restless watch around it. Nothing can cool

The fevered night,
Nor dissolve the bitter lump that poisons our days.
Frustrations fight
And grapple to find a meaning, peace through the maze.

You carved a jewel:
Testament to youth with all its flames,
And from that cruel
Sacrifice and heart-break, two young names

Blaze to the universe
Love's tenderness and sweet, sweet power;
Wit and agony framed in verse;
Ecstasy and deadly hour.

You plant a hope
That, though despair has stripped our hearts' bare field,
The memory of wasted love will yield
A spur, to cope.