Shakespeare.

                                        Small Latin and less Greek, all English yours,
                                        dear lad, local, word-blessed, language loved best;
                                        the living human music on our tongues,
                                        young, old, who we were or will be, history's shadow,
                                        love's will, our heart's iambic beat, brother
                                        through time; full-rhyme to us.
                                        Two rivers quote your name;
                                        your journey from the vanished forest's edge
                                        to endless fame – a thousand written souls,
                                        pilgrims, redeemed in poetry– ends here, begins again.
                                        And so, you knew this well, you do not die –
                                        courtier, countryman, noter of flowers and bees,
                                        war's laureate, magician, Janus-faced –
                                        but make a great Cathedral, genius, of this place.
                                                                      -by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy.
                                  -This is a new poem, written to mark the close of this year's
                                                               World Shakespeare Festival.