A to Z Blogging Challenge: Y is for Yclept Yeager, Dr. Robert

Geoffrey Chaucer, 1343-1400

Y is for Yclept Yeager, Dr. Robert

I like to give credit where credit is due.

That the credit is late doesn't (shouldn't?) matter to you.

You taught me from texts with English archaic

My papers, at first, you considered prosaic 

The poets you said you admired were dead,

But you brought them to life with a nod of your head

The books that you held in the palm of your hand

Transported the class to Ye Olde England

It was magic you did, to this day I will claim

"Chaucer, Shakespeare, Sidney"--You invoked them by name

And the words that they wrote were revealed to me

As though they were living and fluid and free

No longer confined to the books that were bound

Their words that you spoke from your lips became sound

And the poetry written all those centuries ago

Could reverberate now in tones high and tones low

It was quite like a dance or a symphony or play

And the students were part of the show every day

We were not just your audience to admire your teaching

But expected to act and with our own words be reaching

The high expectations you set then before us--

They were never forgotten, though they now need a chorus

Of voices reminding to make those words written

Daily on keyboard and not intermittent

If now I complain there's too much on my saucer

I know you would say remember Geoffrey Chaucer:

The Knight "bigan with right a merye cheere

His tale anoon [meant now, not soon!], and saide as ye may heere..."  

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