Ode To The Great Firewall

Photo by wvs

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 updated for 21st Century China (and my current mood):

Oh Great Firewall shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
No, I shalt compare thee to a thorn in my backside.

Thou art more restrictive and more disruptive.
Rough connections do shake the darling congress of March,
And 1989’s memory hath all too long a block.
Sometimes too hot the eye of CPC shines,
And often is Youtube’s complexion dimmed;
And every post from BBS sometime declines,
By chance, or golden shield’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal censor shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that power thou ow’st,
Nor shall freedom brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.

So long as men can browse, or hands can type,
So long lives this, and this gives frustration to thee.

David avatar

6 responses

  1. Fiona avatar
    Fiona

    Hi David,

    What a ‘fragrant’ and ‘moody’ poetry!It smells great:)

    When I saw your reformed ‘Sonnet 18’ ,I just can not hlpe messaging you that why not take a time machine and go back to 14 century to talk to Mr Shakespeare
    D—“Sir,you should learn a new thing from me”:)
    S—“Why”?
    D—“Because I reformed your outdate poetry”.
    S—“That is not reformed,it is stealing my form”!(turn green)

    PS:1,Good blog,I could learn many good things from here.Add oil~!
    2,I strongly wish that i can write down “sonnet 19″(the version 2.0:)

    Fiona,sz

    1. Thanks for your comment Fiona – it made me laugh! I hope Shakespeare wont mind to much that I borrowed from his work 😉 I’ll be looking forward to hearing your Sonnet 19 v2.0!

  2. Russell avatar
    Russell

    I got really confused and thought you’d written that at first haha!!!! no mention of tibet….

    1. Shhhh… they might hear you!

  3. Martin avatar
    Martin

    Nice poem!

    If you wanna see which websites are currently blocked in China, check out http://www.greatfirewall.biz

    1. Interesting site – for something similar check out http://whatblocked.com/

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