Four centuries have come and gone
since Shakespeare's sonnets first debuted.
Accomplishments of human kind,
too long a list to here include.

From horse to iron horse to jet,
four centuries have come and gone,
while candlelight gave way to lamp
as sure as dark gives way to dawn.

From long before the telegraph
to satellites that orbit space,
four centuries have come and gone,
advancements of the human race.

Yet where, I ask, might poet be
in all those forty decades long
whose words surpass what Shakespeare wrote?
Four centuries have come and gone.