Paradise Cost a Sonnet

Milton rose up from paradise down to hell

Burns crossed swords with Satan herself

Blake no stranger at the iron gate as well

Dante has the T shirt uplifted off the shelf

 

Shakespeare knew of some darkened place

Marlowe, no stranger to the shadowed light

Heaven’s not alone with its luminous face

Hell’s stacked with creatures burning bright

 

Lord Byron frightened half of Hades itself

Angels travel where the devil fears to tread

As Shelley knew and Keats kept to himself

Nothing frightens poets, living or the undead

Everything costs itself the precious bargain

Nothing’s free ‘cept soul and poetry chargin’.