2.)   “Is this a __blank__ which I see before me, 

3.)   The __blank__ toward my hand?”

4.)   Shall I compare thee to a __blank__ day?

5.)   Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit __blank__.

I’m sure Papa Ralph’s Fanatics could answer these with ease. If not, Google it. I miss those exchanges of lines already.

• It was commonplace to hear someone question himself (“To be or not to be, that is the question”);
• to declare love (“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”),
• to woo (“shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Though art more lovely and temperate.”),
• or should a man be accused of lying, he may answer (“If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved”),
• some activists may cry (“If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”),
• the deluded may question (“Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee!”)  

Poetry used to flow like honey in the halls of CCS, I guess it forever will thanks to the influence of Papa Ralph.

Macbeth and Hamlet were our friends. We were the players and Papa Ralph the playwright; the classroom was our world, our stage. We met Annabelle Lee in a kingdom by the sea, fought side by side with the Jets against the Sharks, we danced “I like to be in America on the roof tops,” we stood on our desks and shouted “Oh, captain, my captain,” broke some branches at Birnam Wood and marched to Dunsinane Hill along side with Macduff, bore witness when Horatio recounted the deathly tale of Hamlet, Gertrude, Laertes and Claudius to “the yet unknowing world,” we burned, pined and perished at the sight of Cleopatra, Juliet, Mark Antony, and even Humphry Bogart. Our potentials were limitless. We stood in front of an audience to declaim, orate and debate; we composed our own tales of princes rescuing their damsels in distress; and we dreamt endlessly of the things we can accomplish. We believed because you believed Sir.

You are unparalleled Sir Ralph. Your teachings will forever stay in our hearts. Your Legacy will live forever. My words are mere representations of the gratitude and loss I feel after your passing. Now, you are with the great men you spoke highly of and you are with our Creator. I know you are happy. And soon, we too will be.

Sonnet 71

No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it, for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O! if, I say, you look upon this verse,
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;
But let your love even with my life decay;
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.