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A Man of a Few More Words - by Swan Morrison

A Brakspearean Sonnet (Poem)

From St. Louis to tour England I came.
Our trip was brief; the coach kept on the go.
In Stratford, houses stood of special fame,
Though their significance I still don’t know.
Anne Hathaway’s was one we drove on past,
Then Mary Arden’s home came into view.
I think our guide said Brakspear’s was the last.
Who all these people were, I never knew.
Brakspear, I later learned, brewed English beers.
A stop for lunch at his small pub was planned.
The taste of one drawn pint confirmed my fears:
T'was warm and flat like ales in all England!
The Brits should visit my home town to see
Real beer at the Budweiser Brewery.

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Footnotes:
1 - Stratford upon Avon, England, was the birthplace and home of William Shakespeare.
2 - Anne Hathaway was the wife of William Shakespeare.
3 - Mary Arden was the mother of William Shakespeare.
4 - Brakspear is an English brewer. The modern brewery is in Witney, Oxfordshire. Witney is just forty miles from Stratford upon Avon, and the Brakspear Brewery supplies to pubs in that area.
5 - The original Budweiser Brewery is in St. Louis, Missouri, USA.
6 - The poetic form above is a Shakespearean, or English sonnet. This consists of fourteen lines, each containing ten syllables. Each line is written in iambic pentameter which is a pattern of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, repeated five times. The rhyme scheme is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG in which the last two lines are a rhyming couplet.
7 - William Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets.
8 - In 1557 John Shakespeare, the father of William Shakespeare, obtained Public Office when he was elected as ale-taster of the Borough of Stratford.

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Images © Mr Dwight C. Ewing Jnr. of St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Anne Hathaway's Cottage

Mary Arden's House

Palmer's Farm

Palmer's Farm is a building adjacent to Mary Arden's House which, until recently, was believed to be Mary Arden's House.
It is much prettier and more romantic than Mary Arden's real, boring, red brick property, above, and experts believe that the truth about these properties should have been suppressed.

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