Like all the greatest souls humanity
Has offered up to Nature’s sacred quest,
Will knew the starting point is sanity
Without which man by chaos is possessed.
Yet sanity includes the truths of heart,
So often seen as foes to those of mind:
The natural need for love must play its part –
In William’s plays the sanest parts are kind.
Between these poles imagination streaks
(Though some regard it as telepathy)
And when to true integrity it speaks,
The end result is godlike empathy.
To help disarm mad Machiavelli’s ghost
May well have been what Shakespeare wanted most.
Jerusalem
27 April 2005