Poem 2: Sonnet — “I Wander” into the Great Mall of Ours
A sonnet on the National Mall, asking the founders a question about fabrication.
“I wander”1 into the great Mall of ours,
Where monuments elected for Founders
From Virginia. I ask’d with trepidation:
“Should U.S. court allow fabrication?
Ah, allow false citations in case law!”
“Thou shall not cite a false citation;
A sacred norm for Americans all.”
“Could lofty law schools be an exception?”
On the other side of the Potomacs,2
Stands the Alexander Court of Max,3
Where permitted are th’ professionals of law
To fabricate citations in case law;
To lie on discovery inquiries.
Ah, Dear Fathers, does this make sense [in this nation of ours]?
Comments on rhyme scheme
1) The Elizabethan/Shakespearean Sonnet has the standard rhyme scheme: a, b, a, b; c, d, c, d; e, f, e, f; g, g.
2) Wordsworth’s Sonnet “Composed upon Westminster Bridge” has the following scheme: a, b, b, a; c, d, d, c; e, f, e, f, e, f.
3) Mine: a, a, b, b; c, b, c, b; d, d, c, c; e, e.
Footnotes
- I borrow the phrase “I wander” from Blake’s “London”, the first line of which is “I wander thro’ each charter’d street,” Why the phrase is significant is because Wordsworth turned “I wander” as a theme into a genre, where he would indicate or recount his walking around his neighborhood to find or expect revelation with anticipation from the Great Spirit of Nature and, after such a revelation, he would experience supreme tranquility, as one, of sceneries he perceived. That makes his work, The Prelude, legendary. However, Wordsworth always used past tense, “I wandered,” such as in his “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”; whereas Blake used present tense to record the dire poverty seen in the London street and he protested. Blake is not aesthetically as sophistical as Wordsworth. But he had strength from the very earth of the Saxon land, where streets of London were part of that land. His spiritual power in his poems overwhelms the readers. Half a century later Dickens’ prose novel also showed such strength and power. “Wandering” genre has not died with the Romantic poetry. Even today, we have wandering lyrics by James Taylor. ↩
- Arbitrarily an “s” is put to Potomac River to force a rhyme. ↩
- “Max” is arbitrarily put there to force a rhyme. ↩