Unidentified Poems Of William Shakespeare

Unidentified Poems Of William Shakespeare

By Josh Berry(Ancestor)

    William Shakespeare - Shakespeare, the son of William, is a renowned playwright and poet, an actor in his time and who through his works( virtually plays) have cut through diverse areas of life, ranging from war,love,comedy to heroism. Most of his works were published after his death, though acted during his lifetime.
    Aside all his notable poems identified in his complete works, yet, there are some unidentified poems he wrote during the course of his plays, employing his character as the voice of these hidden poems.
   I couldn't ignore when I set my pupils on these poems( yet to be mentioned) because of their distinctive aesthetics. As its been known that William Shakespeare toiled with abstract nouns a lot in most of his poems, personifying them as though they are human beings: this is not new in poetry though, lot of poets used and uses personification but Shakespeare's ability to manipulate these abstract nouns makes his works distinct.
    I will start with his "Love's Labour's Lost". In this play that portrays the magical influence of the emotion called love on the respective characters he used in his play, starting from the great king to the humiliated clown, Costard. The language of the characters are tentatively poetic,and most of them speak in rimes/rhymes. Some characters like Holofernes, a school master, Sir Nathaniel, a curate, dig deep into the soil of poetry with their speeches, emphasizing and reemphasizing - using puns- on matters that should be simply expressed.
     The first poem ( I said earlier that the play is written poetically, which means most speeches may possess qualities of  poetry) I see in this play, a piece glazed with aesthetics, is Holofernes' Speech to Sir Nathaniel and Dull, the Constable:

      Noted I

        The preyful princess pierced and prickt
             a pretty pleasing pricket
       Some say a sore: but not a sore,
            till now made sore with shooting.
      The dogs did yell : put L to sore,
           then Sorel jumps from thicket;
       Or pricket, sore, or else Sorel;
          the people fall a-hooting.
       If sore be sore, then L to sore
          makes fifty sores: O sore L!
      Of one sore I an hundred make
          by adding but one more L.

The second one: a love letter read by Sir Nathaniel.

         Noted II

If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to
    love?
  Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty
    vow'd!
Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithfully
    prove;
  Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers
    bow'd.
Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine
    eyes,
  Where all those pleasures live that art would
    comprehend:
If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall
    suffice;
  Well learned is that tongue that well can thee
    commend;
All ignorant that soul that sees without
    wonder, -
  Which is to me some praise that I thy parts
    admire:
Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice His dreadful
    thunder,
  Which, not to anger bent, is music, and sweet
    fire.
Celestial as thou art, O, pardon love this wrong,
That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue.

The third one, a letter read by the king: of wooing a professed loved lady:

       Noted III

So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not
  To those fresh morning drops upon the rose,
As thy eye-beams, when their fresh ray have smot
  The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows:
Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright
  Through the transparent bosom of the deep,
As doth thy face through tears of mine give light;
  Thou shin'st in every tear that I do weep:
No drop but as a coach doth carry thee;
  So ridest thou triumphing in my woe.
Do but behold the tears that swell in me,
  And they thy glory through my grief will show:
But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep
My tears for glasses, and still make me weep.
O queen of queens! How far dost thou excel,
No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell.

The fourth, a letter read by Longaville: One of the lords attending to the king:

      Noted IV ( A Sonnet)

Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,
  'Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,
Persuade my heart to this false perjury?
  Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.
A woman forswore; but I will prove,
  Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee;
My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;
  Thy grace being gain'd cures all disgrace In me.
Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is:
  Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine,
Exhalest this vapour-vow; in thee it is:
  If broken then, it is no fault of mine:
        If by me broke, what fool is not so wise?
        To lose an oath to win a paradise?

The fifth one is read by Dumaine; another lord attending the king:

       Noted V

            On a day - Alack the day! -
            Love, whose month is ever May,
            Spied a blossom passing fair
            Playing in the wanton air:
            Through the velvet leaves the wind,
            All unseen, can passage find;
            That the lover, sick to death,
            Wihst himself the heavens breath.
            Air,qouth he, thy cheeks may blow;
            Air, would I might triumph so!
            But, Alack , my hand is sworn
            Ne'er to pluck thee from they thorn; -
            Vow, Alack, for youth unmeet,
            Youth so apt to pluck a sweet!
            Do not call it sin in me,
            That I am forsworn for thee;
            Thou for whom Jove would swear
            Juno but an Ethiop were;
            And deny himself for Jove,
            Turning mortal for thy love.

All these poems above are profession of love from the culprits to their respective maidens: They are written to woo the ladies for themselves. But aside these poems inspired by the emotion called love, the succeeding poem is an extension of emotion - the praise of aesthetics: a dialogue between Spring and Winter as portrayed by Shakespeare:

Which makes the sixth poem:

         Noted VI

           The Song
  
                        SPRING.

When daisies pied and violets blue,
   And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
   Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then on every tree
Mocks married men; for thus sings he,
                    Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws
   And merry larks are Ploughmen's clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and draws,
   And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
The cuckoo then on every tree;
Mocks married men; for thus sings he,
                    Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!

                         WINTER.

When icicles hang by the wall,
   And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
   And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipt and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
                    Tu-whit;
Tu-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
   And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
   And Mirian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
                    Tu-whit;
Tu-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

    The six newly noted poems above are the extracts from William Shakespeare's "Love's Labour's Lost". This does not limit the further findings to be made subsequently on the " unidentified poems" written by him.
    For the next part of this volume, another of his play would be considered and a poetic sanitation would be done, with an eye of fishing out the poetic treasures that are imbedded in the deep-darkest ocean of the great man's artistic works. Catch Y'all Later. It's the Ancestor!

           THANKS FOR READING