Shakespeare's 97th sonnet is the only one containing a W in the first line, an I in the second, then L, L, S, H, A, K, E, S, P, E, A, R. Adding his name as a fifteenth line allows his surname to be completed. Now it so happens that my own name also contains 15 letters...
How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December's bareness every where!
And yet this time removed was summer's time,
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
Like widowed wombs after their lords' decease:
Yet this abundant issue seemed to me
But hope of orphans and unfathered fruit;
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And, thou away, the very birds are mute;
Or, if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.
--Will Shakespeare
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In heaven! there's something here which seems bizarre -
I swear I've heard that "season" theme before:
"Shall I compare thee" and et cetera -
Why flog this feeble metaphor some more?
Stop drawling, then. I fear I won't abet it:
Beware, it ain't the subtlest of your tricks:
Yeah, Winter Dreadful. Summer Fine. We get it.
- Indeed, we got it back in Sonnet VI.
But ninety verses after, you've rehashed
Manure as perfumed as a demon's spawn;
We're deeply unamused. You should be thrashed,
And this weak, sheeplike waffle be withdrawn.
And one more wee mistake I should refute:
I strangled all the birds, that's why they're mute.
--Richard Grantham
[Sonnet VI begins: "Then let not winter's ragged hand deface / In thee thy summer..."]