The Wooden O

He's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom

On this, the day on which my mortall body enter'd this breathing world some four hundred twoscore and three years gone, I am return'd to fill this page of insubstantial light with words light and insubstantial likewise.

Much hath passed since last I writ here, and many are the souls new come to join me and mine where we sit and quaff the golden ale of immortality. One such sits by me now, and raiseth up a glass: that most learnéd sir, Professor Tony Nuttall, lately come from Oxford. Here is one who, in life, knew me right well, as his book doth attest (yet he names me Shakespeare The Thinker! Methinks he doth flatter overmuch.) A better companion ne'er drain'd a glass; a better tutor ne'er gave a lecture; a finer man ne'er walked the green earth. Now he tradeth tales with Kit Marlowe, Ben Jonson and me (and that odd lean parson, Laurence Sterne, who cometh here expressly to speak with him. A strange fellow, but holds his drink well enow.)

I wax maudlin, I know; 'tis a fault with poets, be they drunk or sober, dead or living. It shall be my round anon, and I must to the tapster: only this I say, in parting.

If thou wouldst know me, Reader, look
Not on this Blog, but on his Book.