/lit/ - Literature

Posted this on the other thread, and a couple of Anons (to whom I am eternally grateful) offered some comments. Hopefully here more people will tell me what they think about it. Pic unrelated.

Were you to ask me now, I would not tell
The road I took to go from Primrose Hill.

Instead, I could tell you about its sky,
The blue behind the grey, the hasty clouds,
Impatient as the rain that came and went,
Announcing itself as it left the stage.

Indeed, I could tell you about the road,
The other one, that leads to Primrose Hill:
The riverside that outlines Camden Town
And extends the hubbub of its market;
Tunnels, bridges, graffiti on the walls,
And boats resting on water black from dirt.

And even more I could tell you: the church
In the corner of a street, made of stone,
Its frame as bible black as solid cloud.

And I could tell you about Primrose Hill:
The green darkness of the grass, moisty earth,
So soft it yields under the children’s feet
Yet budges not to hawthorn or foxglove,
Nor to the oak with the weight of the crows,
The shadows of its leaves, another cloud.
Nor to the Hill itself, whose mighty bulk
Supports the stony sky, and grants a view
Of London’s skyline, limiting the earth
To the perspective of the horizon.

And as it gently rains I hear the crows,
The roaring wind, the voice of William Blake,
The graveness of his tone recalls his talk
With the spiritéd sun at Primrose Hill.
Yet I remember not the sun, but night,
The night of New Year’s Eve, my first night here
In stranger’s land, among far stranger tongues.
But Primrose Hill distinguishes us not;
It shoulders all: the sky, the clouds, the rain,
Three hundred people there, a bench, myself.

But were you to ask me what road I took,
I wouldn’t tell, I could not tell, for I forgot.

I study it in sixth form

Shakespeare wrote for the new King James I who was Catholic, succeeding the previous protestant monarchs which created political turmoil within the nobility surrounding the tension between faiths (culminating in the gunpowder treason plot). Macbeth's fate serves as a reminder to the nobility about the dangers of power and ambition (as does The Tempest).
Shakespeare's message is a humanitarian one.

Likewise the theme of the witches was likely incorporated to appease King James I who was obsessed with the supernatural (even writing a book called 'demonology').