Reviews

‘Christine Poulson’s wonderful sense of place brings Cambridge to life. Cassie overcomes the problems facing her with wit and guile aplenty and ensures the reader’s empathy from first word to last . . . an enthralling and engaging read that underlines Christine’s burgeoning reputation as a crime novelist to watch.’ [Stage Fright]

- SHOTS MAGAZINE

Shakespeare Knew Everything

Yesterday in Cambridge I was missing a dear friend who died recently. I went into Heffer’s Bookshop (best crime fiction stock of anywhere that I know) and my attention was caught by a book on one of the tables at the front: Poems That Make Grown Men Cry. I’d heard it mentioned on Radio 4.  As I turned over the pages I came to Melvin Bragg’s choice: Shakespeare, Sonnet 30 and these words sprang out at me: ‘For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night.’  They so perfectly captured how I felt. Was there anything that Shakespeare didn’t know about the human heart? Here is the whole poem:

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
   But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
   All losses are restor’d and sorrows end.

And you can go here to hear it read by Kenneth Branaugh: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWVvlZdLTDA. Sublime.

2 Comments

  1. Clothes In Books
    May 2, 2014

    How lovely, you’re so right,Shakespeare can always do it. I just bought that book as a birthday present for someone.

    Reply
  2. Christine
    May 3, 2014

    Lovely to hear from you. Good choice – that book looked very interesting.

    Reply

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