The happiest of birthdays to thee, Will!
(As happy as they are that come around
When once the honoree is underground!)
The wormy company has had its fill,
The water in the crypt has washed your bones
And bleached your gravecloth napkin snowy white.
The silver of your buttons, polished bright
Lie scattered in the casket ‘neath the stones.
But like a crowd of guests that will not leave
The half-cleared dining table, talking on
Until the night wears thin before the dawn,
Your readership remains, for we believe
Our dreadful sonnets might just raise your ghost
To raise a glass and join us in a toast.

Originally posted on Making Light, where it spawned a substantial number of sonnets. So I wrote another one praising the people who joined in:

The ghostly Bard reloads the thread again
He knows he should be working on a script
But no one sees he’s surfing in his crypt
And he deserves distraction now and then.
The iPad gets a signal even there
(Will Shakespeare ever was Teh Shiny’s slave
From words to gadgets, even in the grave.)
Then from the crypt, a cry of deep despair.
“I thought she said the sonnets would be bad,
So I could take a break, and have fun haunting
All who defiled my art! I’d hover, daunting
The versifiers! Drive them mute and mad!
But I can’t punish these instead of work.
I wish they’d write some trash so I can shirk!”