I Could Write a Sonnet

Today, we were supposed to look at a list of which Shakespeare is credited with coining, choose one for a title, and then write your poem. I browsed through the list. Wasted some time looking up the etymology of some that I was reasonably sure pre-dated Shakespeare. Wasted more time reading articles about Shakespeare really being a great coiner of words, but that some of the words generally associated with him were likely older. He merely got them into print the first time. But, I digress. 

After all that hemming and hawing, I decided to go with 'hobnob'. In Shakespeare - if the Merriam-Webster dictionary may be trusted - hobnob meant something along the lines of hit and miss, By the 1700s, the phrase had come to mean "to drink to each other". So you get.... (drum roll, please).... a drinking sonnet.

Hobnob

God save you, my friend, its been too long

Since we sat together with shot or pint

Making us merry with laughter and song,

Sitting up talking far into the night.

So sit by the fire and drink with me - 

A bit of old whisky will do us well,

And we shall contented and pleasant be - 

Now up with our glasses, our toasts to tell.

Here's to good whisky and to the past,

Honour and courage and all holy things,

The day that's done and the one coming fast,

To our Cause and the joy that friendship brings,

To our Faith, and King O'er the Water - 

Raise your glass and toast to one another!