Renaissance Sonnet Discovered in Bodleian Could Be By Shakespeare

News of a sonnet, discovered during recent plumbing work at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, is puzzling scholars of English Renaissance literature. Everything in the handwriting and paper indicates authenticity, but the use of the word “crust” to mean “cheek, brass neck, chutzpah” seems an anachronism.

You may read it here (spelling modernised) and make your own judgment.

Viewing the ashy desert of my lust
As I lie here abed, awaiting death,
I pray not. Tis a waste of noisome breath
To plead with unhearing gods. I put my trust
Rather in my unconquerable crust,
The steely corselet which sustained my joys
When I, like child besotted with its toys,
Pursued fair wenches, now long turned to dust.

I had my times, gamesome and hot they were.
My bastard brood in every parish grew.
My quarry? Women, and my lust the spur,
A merry hunt! My friends, to me be true:
No “Dies Irae” sing, death’s path to ease.
But “I did it my way” – at my funeral, please.

Antigone: A Sonnet

This was written as a prize (a poor one, I'm sorry to say) for the winner of last Tuesday's competition.

Antigone

The first I read of you was Anouilh's play.
I loved at once your pagan piety
And bloody-mindedness. Sang strong to me,
Your barefoot wanderings, too, at break of day.
Your uncle Creon, had a mind of clay,
Pragmatic, bourgeois, crude morality.
You shamed his dull respectability
With your existential 'acte gratuit'. I'd lay

A mina to a drachma, Sophocles's
Far greater tragedy had no such effect
On my sixteen-year-old character as you
Did with your cold self-will. My heart freezes
Still at your suicidal self-neglect.
Killing yourself, you to yourself were true. 

New sonnet claimed to be by Donne, Shakespeare, or Marvell discovered behind Bodleian lavatory cistern

News of a manuscript sonnet, discovered behind a lavatory cistern during recent plumbing work at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, is puzzling scholars of English Renaissance literature. Everything in the handwriting and paper indicates authenticity, but the punning use of the word “crust” to mean "armour", and also “cheek, brass neck, chutzpah” seems an anachronism, as does the non standard rhyming scheme (ABBAACCA) of the octet. 

The reference in the last line to the song "I Did It My Way", now popular at funerals, is also causing experts to re-examine the question of the dating of that song.

You may read it here (spelling modernised) and make your own judgment.

Viewing the ashy desert of my lust
As I lie here abed, awaiting death,
I pray not. Tis a waste of noisome breath
To plead with unhearing gods. I put my trust
Rather in my unconquerable crust,
The steely corselet which sustained my joys
When I, like child besotted with its toys,
Pursued fair wenches, now long turned to dust.

I had my times, gamesome and hot they were.
My bastard brood in every parish grew.
My quarry? Women, and my lust the spur,
A merry hunt! My friends, to me be true:
No “Dies Irae” sing, death’s path to ease.
But “I did it my way” – at my funeral, please.

Sonnet No 3

Sonnet No.3

It’s funny looking back. When I was young,
I thought I’d be a poet and turned out
Some six half-decent lyrics worth a shout,
A hundred which are better left unsung.
Rifled my brain for tropes, bells not yet rung
Anything to be read and talked about.
Then came the cold conviction, icy doubt:
I lacked poetic passion. So  I flung



My work away. Now, altered, old, and tired,
I footle in my verbal potting shed:
Ideas like bulbs and seedlings dry and dead,
Their germination date long, long expired.

Hot bilious anger's now  my motivation,
Polemic doggerel its sublimation.