To my dear friend in letters, Mr. William Shakespeare;
Forgive the hasty and informal manner in which this missive arrives in your hands. Brevity is required, as the events of recent days in London have made time a terrifying and insistent companion of late.
You may find this request odd; indeed I have been trepidatious in penning it. However, with your indulgence, I will plunge forth.
My situation is dire: my home and belongings have been seized by the crown. My financial state is one of ruin. My reputation has been sullied and subjected to the darkest of scorn. The nefarious agents of the notorious spymaster, one Sir Francis Walsingham, have hounded and harassed me to distraction.
You will inquire of me; why have these conditions befallen you, dear friend? Indeed, it is our long friendship that forces me to become a supplicant to your benefice.
The answer to that question is both simple and singular. All this calamity has been visited upon me because I wrote a verse.
Because all printed copies of my work, pamphlet and quarto alike, have been banned, I must render this poor poem here in the hope you will understand. If understanding leads to sympathy, and sympathy leads you to taking on the role of the Samaritan, then I could consider myself a man of inverted fortunes; from damned to blessed.
If you could find it in yourself to intervene before the gallows and the rack become my destiny, one more writer would be saved, unworthy as I am to call my self poet in your presence. I beg of you, do what you can. Even now I hear the hooves approaching on the road. My hiding place is discovered. If it is my fate to leave this world because of words, then words are what I shall leave behind. Fare you well, Will, if we should never meet again. No more delay, here is the offending verse in question:
Should there be a sun upon the shore?
What deserves this salten strand of solace?
Inequity resides in better climes, be sure.
Why should not night be fixed along the edge?
Who calls again to raise the siege of scorns?
Injurious time doth blight the eye of hope;
How then would this escape a fate aligned?
Only recall the name that's stamped here,
This England island ship of solemn grace,
Let gilded dark give way to morning shine!
Crown, fall! Voices, rise! No meteor it was,
Tarnished 'round which held thy youth at bay.
Look now, a newborn sky of endless blue!
Embrace the Time, dear land, yet I'll be true.
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