Should we do nothing to face climate change?
To shrug at the fossil fueled rising temps
Rough storms do break the dark buds blooming late,
And summer’s leash gets a longer length;
Somewhere too hot in the eye of hell fire
And awful in our grey atmosphere dimmed;
Where nothing’s fair from heat intensifier
To nature’s changing course and our lives trimm'd;
But our eternal sunshine shall not fade
Nor lose sight of what’s right and what we ow’st
Nor shall grief drag us far down, nor our rage
When we can transform along with time grow’st.
So long as we work to help all to breathe
So long lives this, and this gives life to be
— Adam Powers
Sound familiar? If you can’t place the reference, this one’s from the Bard’s famed “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Sonnet 18. Actually kept the iambic pentameter in this one (please clap).
Here are a few other fun Shakespeare climate rewrites:
And here’s a Goethe climate rewrite just for fun