QUEEN ELIZABETH 1

We respect language
connecting every other being
refusing to make a mad scene
in front of a queen or king

Actors perfect their stance
with cleverness on the royal stage
scenes from every circumstance
we suspect bares a loyal page,

Remember the Tudors
with Essex and Raleigh
courtiers and paramours
love has its own folly,

When Sir Walter introduced
the poet Southey to court
then heady verse boasted
as cover to seduce support,

An age we call Shakespearean
with so much partisan loss
a reformation chose a renaissance
over substance in wine and cross.