Wanton Poets Poem by gershon hepner

Wanton poets, pleasant wits,
musicians who can touch their strings
and as lovers be great hits,
are the men this poet sings,
for without computer bits
they makes pliant queens with wings
of artistry with which they blitz,
sensuous in sylvan springs.

Gaveston says at the beginning of Marlowe’s “Edward II”:

These are not men for me,
I must have wanton poets, pleasant wits,
Musicians, that with touching of a string
May draw the pliant King which way I please.
Music and poetry is his delight;
Therefore I'll have Italian masks by night,
Sweet speeches, comedies, and pleasing shows;
And in the day, when he shall walk abroad,
Like sylvan nymphs my pages shall be clad;
My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns,
Shall with their goat feet dance the antic hay.
Sometime a lovely boy in Dian's shape,
With hair that gilds the water as it glides,
Crownets of pearl about his naked arms,
And in his sportful hands an olive tree,
To hide those parts which men delight to see,
Shall bathe him in a spring; and there, hard by,
One like Actæon, peeping through the grove,
Shall by the angry goddess be transformed,
And running in the likeness of an hart,
By yelping hounds pulled down, shall seem to die:
Such things as these best please his majesty,
My lord! Here comes the King and the nobles
From the parliament.

3/7/06