Help, ho! What, murder? I am slain!

But first, a far-too-long soliloquy

In pompous pentametric cadences

Wherein I curse that scurviest of villains

Who dealt the lethal blow.

                                                   O world! O fate!

In just a few scant moments, I shall die.

I will not, as the Pythons say, be pining

For the fields. I will have given up the ghost.

Much like the parrot in the famous sketch,

I shall expire, and I shall cease to be.

The breath of life that once was quick in me

Seeps hopelessly away from my poor frame.

My fingers clutch in vain, my heart grows frail.

Oceans of blood are spilt upon the stage.

There's no way out this time. I'm really screwed.

Why couldn't I be Julius Caesar, with

Three famous words before his sayonara?

But bardic Will was feeling frisky when

He wrote my exit. Thirty-seven lines!

Like Avon's Edith Bunker, nattering on

Without ostensible gist to all his ramblings,

The dude outdid himself. I'm cooked, I'm toast.

The other dramatis personae here

Are saying, "See ya! Wouldn't wanna be ya!"

You know what really roasts my bag of chestnuts?

No one, but no one, will be quoting me!

I’d hoped for something in Act II, scene iii:

Some pithy barb, some swaggering bon mot.

The pride of Stratford is just coasting now,

His prolix valediction no great shakes.

My pulse now weakens to a feeble beat;

Iambically, my ticker taps farewell.

Therefore, since brevity is the soul of --- what?

Oh, that’s right. Different play. I never get

The memorable lines. And so it goes:

I’ll be past tense before you even know it.

Is this my finish? Figures. What a poet!