If Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem
Would read together Will’s collected works,
A wholesome spirit should envelop them,
Healing the wounds where sour infection lurks:
For unkind dealings and divisive creeds
Are shown in Shakespeare’s plays to be the stuff
On which insatiate hatred duly feeds –
Commodities his sounder parts rebuff.
It is for sanity the poet calls
In order to resist the Machiavel;
A community of individuals,
The antidote to every man-made hell.
When souls in common sense can truly trust,
They take delight in quintessential dust.
Jerusalem
8 April 2005