Shakespeare or Swift?

Shakespeare or Swift?

• Shakespeare

• Swift

Shakespeare or Swift?

• Shakespeare

• Swift

Shakespeare or Swift?

• Shakespeare

• Swift

Shakespeare or Swift?

• Shakespeare

• Swift

Shakespeare or Swift?

• Shakespeare

• Swift

Shakespeare or Swift?

• Shakespeare

• Swift

“When thou a week’s frustrations must expel,

thou wishest for a dance hall to unwind;

with plans to seek a suitor there as well,

thy merriment’s not all thou hop’st to find.

How music stirs up souls with rhythmic joy!

O, anyone could be thy paramour;

but ’til the right one’s found, thou need’st no boy

to frolic free and let thy spirit soar.

Thy sweet exuberance betrays thy youth

for thou art merely seventeen in age;

and yet thy artful movements bare the truth:

thou art a master true upon the stage.

— All eyes are fix’d upon thee, most entranc’d —

thy coronation as the Queen of Dance!”

Answer explanation

“My mem’ry gazes back on young romance

and on its twilight throes, when first thou left;

thou claim’d we needed absence to advance

but for togetherness, we’d been bereft.

Thou soon return’d, thy face forlorn and drawn,

and from thy lips hung promises to change;

then, by the morrow, all those oaths were gone

and once again we found ourselves estranged.

The cycle never breaks; our sordid tales

end always with ellipses, not full stops.

When yesternight our courtship freshly fail’d,

thou saw’st the cue to take it from the top.

— But now that we are once again apart,

I swear thou’lt ne’er again reclaim my heart.”

Answer explanation

“Is this the waking world, or do I sleep?

I find I can’t be rous’d, to my dismay;

but you should not for this delinquent weep

for I’m a brute whose soul’s been toss’d away.

O, Mother sweet, I bring thee news of dread —

my life’s at end, for I’ve another slain.

I press’d my crossbow up against his head

and loosed its bolt away into his brain.

— but hark! I see a dark and ghostly form

amidst the lightning launch’d by Jove on high!

The cries for mercy, silenced by the storm,

are futile; I’ll not be released, but die.

— My fate now seal’d, ’tis plain for all to see:

the wind’s direction matters not to me.”

Answer explanation