Two Poems by the Bard of Stony Stratford Vanessa Horton Jonklaas

Vanessa wrote these poems for the Plant Sale & Coffee Morning, the joint fundraising event in aid us & York House. This year we had a strong Shakespearean theme as part of Stony Stratfords commemoration of Shakespears death.

Stony in Bloom

Sowing the seeds of our community

The volunteers till the Stony soil

In rain or shine they don their gloves

And for their town they toil.

Digging, planting, clearing, planting

They turn the grey to green

Producing the best displays of blooms

That you have ever seen

They also spread their love around

Teaching children of the worth

Of caring for Mother Nature

And tending to the earth

So plant your feet and dig within

Let gratitude find room

Let the applause grow loud for the volunteers

Of Stony Stratford in Bloom!

Bardic Blooms

Sweet William has graced the Bardic Arts

And with his words enraptured many hearts

The beauty of his sonnets and his plays

Has enriched our lives and gilded all our days

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet

As would his presence on our Watling Street.

But did Stratford’s Bard declaim on Stony Ground

Did we inspire him to some verse profound?

The Stratford that lit Bill’s creative wick

Was it shire of Bucks or of Warwick?

Would the beauty of Stony Stratford’s bloom

Have rendered William Shakespeare all a-swoon

Would our displays have caused his quill to flow

If our town the Bard had come to know

Did the flowers mentioned in his sonnets

The gilded lilies, or bluebells in their bonnets,

Adorn our gardens, fringe our window sills

Bedeck our walkways with their perfumed frills?

Well, whichever Stratford can indeed lay claim

To England’s scribe of such far-reaching fame

Let’s just rejoice that ever he did live

And with his writing such sweet joy did give

That he could make us see with skilful verse

The beauty of our bounteous universe