Shall I Compare Thee to a Winter's Day?

Lucía Hernández Rodríguez

I live and rest in sin. Yours took away

my peace, my being. You dare to call it love

yet love shan’t be compared to empty days

nor days not lit by glass, sun-kissed, above.

And Shakespeare proudly melts in summer rains.

Did verse not know I lost myself? Your night

to blame. I, fool, believed him. Coldy veins

by forecast cut -by breeze, might be-. No right.

No right to be in sight of winter tears,

a kiss from autumn does as well, though sour:

its falling, tender leaves revive my fears

of seeking blooms in lifeless, naked hours.

So, am I right, my dear, to yearn for spring,

if, still, I doubt about the coat to bring?

November 2025

Homage to those who bring books closer to us

That Book Woman, by Heather Henson (Video from YouTube)
 

On revision

                             

Angela Carter

"Ours is a highly individualized culture, with a great faith in the work of art as a unique one-off, and the artist as an original, a godlike and inspired creator of unique one-offs. But fairy tales are not like that, nor are their makers. Who first invented meatballs? In what country? Is there a definitive recipe for potato soup? Think in terms of the domestic arts. 'This is how I make potato soup'". (Angela Carter, The Virago Book of Fairy Tales, 1992: x)

What Carter says about fairy tales could easily be applied to each and every literary genre, could it not? Shakespeare molded the historical record to his taste, and the classical myth, and what not! Mary Shelley engaged in the literary revision of the myth of Prometheus and even the book of Genesis in her Frankenstein.

Surely each writer can do just the same with every text they decide to work on, or work from. Don't you think?

Which text are you willing to revisit?