Rosa 'William Shakespeare 2000' 6 July 2021

My Rosemary and I fell for David Austin English roses early in our garden beginnings in Kerrisdale in the waning days of the 80s. One in particular was our fave and this was Rosa ‘William Shakespeare’. It had a divine perfume and its colour, a dark maroon/red was lovely. It was a bad grower but I did manage to photograph Rebecca, our older granddaughter, with that rose. 

David Austin took the rose out of the market and launched the oddly named “William Shakespeare 2000' which for us did not do well. Since the year 2000 we have had several specimens. We insist in growing roses we like. This year Rosemary’s Shakespeare 2000, which she may have purchased from Paletine Roses back in Ontario, has bloomed a few times.

I was taken aback by the beauty of a spent bloom so I scanned it. Then I went through my volume of the complete Shakespeare and found this lovely sonnet, 71, that somehow when I read it, it seemed like something that Rosemary might have told me.

While I have not been too well living alone in the last few months, I have found comfort in the almost human company of my two cats. Today I found comfort in Shakespeare’s sonnet.

 Sonnet 71: By William Shakespeare

No longer mourn for me when I am dead

Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell

Give warning to the world that I am fled

From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell;

Nay, if you read this line, remember not

The hand that writ it; for I love you so,

That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,

If thinking on me then should make you woe.

O, if (I say) you look upon this verse,

When I (perhaps) compounded am with clay,

Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,

But let your love even with my life decay,

Lest the wise world should look into your moan,

And mock you with me after I am gone.