Sonnets for Shakespeare’s Birthday, by Margaret Coats

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The Comedy of Rosalind

—As You Like It

I show more mirth than I am mistress of.
This forest and my folly prompted change
Of sex, and my disguise dissembles love.
I’m altered by men’s hose and doublet strange,
While sweet Orlando carves on every tree
The name I dare not own, and hangs up verses
Like leaves in praise of unexpressive me.
A silly fear my desperate heart rehearses:
Is he in truth a man of God’s own making,
Or a fraud in gender frenzy’s false allure?
Can love mature beyond charmed Arden’s aching
Once I (no sword upon my thigh) am sure?
O leave me, love that reaches but to lust,
For I desire a higher, harder thrust.

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The Tragedy of Desdemona

—Othello

So beautiful Othello is to me
As Adam was to just-created Eve,
Yet in our Eden lurks an enemy,
And for a misplaced handkerchief I grieve.
I am a child to edifying chiding,
But shrink away from fury in his speech
With reason stifled and crazed rage misguiding.
Should not our love and comfort still increase?
It is the maddening error of the moon,
And I declare I die a guiltless death,
Though sin against the truth seems opportune
While I lie struggling for my final breath.
Nobody murdered me but I myself;
We both have loved not wisely but too well.

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The History of Catherine

—The Famous Life of Henry VIII

Henry and England have my heart and prayers
While I have life. I made his wishes mine
And strove to love his friends, although some bear
Me hatred. As Queen, I made his rule benign
To subjects by my pleas for his good will.
My wealth was wedlock, love, duty well-served,
And to the woman who has served me ill
I add an honor: my patience unreserved.
Foes blew this coal between my lord and me—
May God’s dew quench it! Alas, wenches, fortune
Whirls uncertain. Our blissful harmony
Divorce has turned into a dreadful torture.
I little thought, when I set footing here,
I should have bought my dignity so dear.

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The Romance of Hermione

—The Winter’s Tale

After this lengthy gap of time, no words.
No words, Leontes, only an embrace.

You’ve given me again the will to face
A court that dealt in rigor, not in law.
These sixteen years when I have been thought dead,
Paulina, only solace whom I saw,
Caused friendship to be right interpreted,
Not as adulterous conspiracy
But true affection from your consort due
In words of generous diplomacy,
Spoken to a king allied with you.
Now you and I experience the force
Of self-denial, healing’s only source.

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Margaret Coats lives in California.  She holds a Ph.D. in English and American Literature and Language from Harvard University.  She has retired from a career of teaching literature, languages, and writing that included considerable work in homeschooling for her own family and others.