I assumed that line was paying homage to "His sins were scarlet, but his books were read." But/and I've been wrong before.

No soliloquy yet from me, but I'm working on something along the lines of:

Housewives up above the ground
And worms below it lunch.
Who put me here? No answer's found.
And yet . . . I have a hunch.

Frank and Chris, the "but" in my last line was partly in homage to Belloc's line, as Chris picked up, but it was also there because the crooked back is what people would expect from Shakespeare's play, but they wouldn't expect "girly" arms. I am not sure, though, that the latter reason is coming through, so I may need to change the "but" to "and" to avoid puzzling the readers.

Susan

Good one, Susan. I'd go with 'and'.

Not sure I'm up to this challenge, but I wanted to share the best Valentine I read this week, courtesy of the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival.
Wars of Roses are red
Smothered nephews are blue.
I'd wait 500 years
Under a car park for you.

Susan, I don't think you have to worry about the language. (It's not like the prissy Washington Post.) The Spectator once set a competition based on Larkin's poem beginning "They fuck you up, your mum and dad".

I, too, think that "and" would be better than "but" in the last line.

A worryingly (for your fellow-competitors) good piece!

My previous post was just testing. I thought you would spot what it was but you didn't. Or if you did you kept quiet. Oh, and don't any of you say this is not a Shakespearian soliloquy. See A Midsummer Night's Dream 5.1 ( Puck), Measure for Measure 3.1 (The Duke) and The Tempest 5.1 (Prospero).



Dead and dwindled to a spectre,
I was once the Lord Protector.
Though my back was rather hunchy,
As a king my style was punchy.
Enemies? I used to whack 'em,
Choke 'em, drown 'em, carve 'em, hack 'em'.
Desperado, high and haughty,
Plot and stratagem my forte,
I was one contentious bugger.
Slaughtered, buried hugger-mugger
By malevolence disloyal,
A quietus quite unroyal,
Now I rise with kingly curses
In these rough and ready verses.
What a fate, horrific, heinous,
With a sword stuck up my anus!

John, count me among those who kept quiet, mainly because I was too busy doing other things! But your previous piece was a compendium consisting largely (or entirely? I'd have to check) of actual lines from Shakespeare. Good fun, though naturally [shudders with horror] it doesn't rhyme. But you've more than made amends with your new piece.

Top of the class, Brian. As you always are. It's called a cento. Some of the lines are actually by Marlowe and one each by Robert Frost and a songwriter whose name escapes me. A lot of effort for not much result. Very popular among late Latin writers.

Thank you for liking my other piece. Writing that was a pure pleasure. And I am proud to have filched my last pair of rhymes from the great Cole Porter.

Oh, and I confidently expect your (rhyming) verse to win something.

Thank you, John. My first version was only partly rhymed, but I couldn't leave it like that, could I? And although there are no actual lines of Shakespeare in it, your eagle eye will have spotted that there are a fair number of near-quotations or echos.

Good luck to both of us! (And the others, come to that - within reason.)

Naw, Brian. It's just thee and me. Thirty for me, twenty-five for you.