Shakespeare the Non-dramatist
The people in his tragedies I know
Are far too rich with metaphors piled on
On top of one another, or the flow
Of freshet torrents from all winter gone
And raging over one rock cliff. Too rich
The language for an ordinary man
Or woman—or a god. Sometimes I itch
For something that is more the human span
As in that other great one, Chaucer. As
It happens, Shakespeare sometimes slips up in
His comedies. There’s even razzmatazz
In them…especially working-class sin…
Well, silliness and malaprops. He laughs
At the mistakes that he creates, their gaffes.