Sir Walter Poem by gershon hepner

Sir Walter



Taking off his plush new cloak,
he placed it on a plushy place,
to make sure that it wouldn’t soak
the Queen, who said to him: “What grace
you have, Sir Walter! Did you learn
to be so courteous in Roanoke? ”
“I did! ” he said. “It’s where I learnt
to yank my coat for womenfolk.”
“She said: “Dear Yanker, you have earnt
my love, since you’ve a heart of oak! ’
Since she had made him high, he taught
the Queen about tobacco smoke.
He hadn’t found the leaves they snort
or those they now burn in a toke.
She turned his head and so he wrote
of love he hoped he could invoke,
but gave another Liz his coat,
which cost his post for propter hoc.
After playing loving games
with the Queen he would provoke
another monarch, First King James,
who took his head with one downstroke.
The moral of this story is: A queen
is often generous to courteous folk,
unless they’re poets who’re obscene,
in which case she won’t get the joke.
A king has power not to falter
when he sees you break his yoke,
a lesson James One taught Sir Walter,
executed in chainsmoke.

Inspired while watching Peter Whelan’s play “The School of Night” at the Mark Taper Forum on December 9,2008. The subject of the play is the so-called “School of Night, ” the name of an alleged Elizabethan cabal that was once referred to in 1592 as the 'School of Atheism.' The cabal centered on Sir Walter Raleigh and supposedly included Christopher Marlowe, George Chapman, Richard Baines, who testified against Marlowe in his trial for atheism, and one of Marlowe's killers, Ingram Frizer. In the play, Thomas Kyd, a playwright remembered primarily for his The Spanish Tragedy, is part of the cabal, and is portrayed as the genuine William Shakespeare. The program notes by Frank Dwyer cite the way that Sir Walter Raleigh, although not a wealthy man, swept of his “new plush cloak” and laid it on a “plashy place” so that the Queen would not muddy her shoes.

12/10/08

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