He raised hell and broke windows, and even worse—
A rash, unruly, haughty aristocrat.
If so, so what? He wrote the first blank verse
And some of our first sonnets. And if that
Were not enough to put us in his debt
Deeply and forever, he gave us more.
He saw to it that we should not forget
His staunch young squire, Thomas Clere, who bore
The miseries of battle with his lord
In Scotland and in France, where to be brave
Was to risk everything—and his reward?
An elegy to justify his grave,
Praise for his loyalty these five hundred years,
And, rarest of all attributes, strangers’ tears.

—Robert Mezey