Happy Birthday, William Shakespeare

Taylor, William Shakespeare, The Chandos Portrait, 1610

The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, 

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; 

And as imagination bodies forth 

The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen 

Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 

A local habitation and a name …

Such tricks hath strong imagination, 

That, if it would but apprehend some joy, 

It comprehends some bringer of that joy; 

Or in the night, imagining some fear, 

How easy is a bush supposed a bear!

William Shakespeare, born on this day in 1564, dissected from A Midsummer Night’s Dream