Saint Hilary's day, the coldest of our year,
when snow and ice enshrouded London town,
was the day the Prince of Poets died.

His home in Ireland had been pillaged and torched.
His wife and young son murdered that same day.
The Irish were hot for English blood;
some said the O'Neil accepted Spanish pay.

He was not young, yet not particularly old,
when death arrived to place him under arrest.
His hostess found him lying on the ground.
His body cold; no sign of pulse nor breath.

His friend, the Earl of Essex, had decreed
The Prince of Poets be mourned by all his kind.
Edmund Spencer beside Chaucer would lie down.
and be eulogized by poets of renown.


Ben Jonson came ; the young John Donne as well.
Beaumont and Fletcher, Chapman and sweet Will,
followed his hearse, then bore him to his tomb.

There in the nave, the poets did him homage.
Reciting there their hastily written lines.
Each man than dropped his poem into the grave
Each poet's pen dropped in the grave besides.