ROBERT NYE'S PASSING
(1939-2016)

You in your summer bier
( borne in an English way)
always with
a heartening laugh
even as a July 's
funereal guest
and well bred gentleman
is passing away
as a life long death column
in a solemn obituary  is read
today at bookstore hallways
or at the library shelves
of London or Oxford
your good wishing fans
held out to reward
ourselves who read you
congratlate
your achievement
taking in a full breath
at your bereavement
after the hearse rode by
others were thinking
how you were
always interpreting
and cheering amid the curse
for Shakespeare's
sly Falstaff
as if you were his muse
or nurse,
we who wish
not to lose you
as if there was no parting
from your span
in what's best in life
for a man's man
with a muscular
ribald but often ghostly humor
but it was more than
what was called
an artsy softened pose
but mostly of a rumor
that more than hinted
before the war
you favored poetry
more than your novel ways
for your own personal metier,
even as T.S. Eliot
sought you out
in his didactic words
and taught to allay us
all our small arbitrary fears
and yet you sought fame
more as a poet
of pacifist estrangement
in your conduit's arrangement
at the tenure of your years
for serving an an objector
to the horror of war,
with proof of a poetry lover
(as you adored Beowulf
at the Welsh ,Scotch
and Celtic folio
which made you a poet
to discover
and a critic not aloof from us
from your accorded verse
in your wondrous libretto
from a universal literary career
which has stood up to time,
yet now you are rewarded
in my own rhyme
for your clever starring years
never to be undercover
but rather we drink
from your cup)
not forsaking
any didactic proof
that an enacted poet
is not aloof
for Robert Nye has wished
to be known and to express
that his cherished soul
will enlist
for a wise poet's goal
not as a dry boned novelist,
if the truth be told
(he is not gone
like a swan on a lake
nor anonymous any more)
but we awake today
to feed
over his vast collection
of literary notes and stories
though you had to leave us
in regret from quotes
with a famous pose
in all its glories
with your wonderful signature
making us to believe
that your critical prose
was definitely part
of our culture
for we will grieve
yet retrieve
your signature memory
from in a lonely paragraph
in the popular press
which unravels to confess
the inimical truth
of your bio
with a passing dissent
to know the clarity
and discover in your folio
your secret sentiment of words
and life long wish to be a poet
as heard in your libretto
was no laughing matter
for now we know it
as in a new demographic reported
in today's " Daily Telegraph"
that such an epitaph
was spotted
and printed for the public
to openly express
as they chatter.