"Not only marble, but the plastic toys"

By Wendy Cope (b. 1945)

Wendy Cope is a contemporary English poet who lives in Cambridgeshire, England. Her early work was primarily whimsical with occasional social commentary. “Not only marble…” is a type of imitation poem, where the poet rewrites a famous poem from history.

"Not only marble, but the plastic toys
From cornflake packets will outlive this rhyme
I can’t immortalise you, love - our joys
Will lie unnoticed in the vault of time.
When Mrs. Thatcher has been cast in bronze
And her administration is a page
In some O-Level text-book, when the dons
Have analysed the story of our age,
When travel firms sell tours of outer space
When aeroplanes take off without a sound
And Tulse Hill has become a trendy place
And upper Norwood’s on the underground
Your beauty and my name will be forgotten -
My love is true, but all my verse is rotten."

“Plastic toys from cornflake packets”

So this poem will feel familiar to anyone who has ever been forced to listen to me recite poetry. It is an imitation of, and in conversation with, “Sonnet 55” by Shakespeare, one of the very first poems I ever memorized. I will include that poem at the bottom so you can compare them yourself, but at least today I think I prefer Cope’s version. As much as I love Shakespeare’s ambitious grandiosity, Cope’s humility is extremely winsome. She finds her poetry more comparable to happy meal toys than beautiful marble monuments. I only wish I was English and thus better able to understand the references to obscure places like “Tulse Hill” or “Upper Norwood.”

In addition to the humility, the double meaning of the last line makes me fall in love with this poem. Not only could her verse be “rotten” in the sense that she doesn’t think it is very good, but it could also have rotten in the sense that fruits, vegetables, and human bodies rot away into nothingness. The tension between her true (immortal) love and rotten (temporal) verse mirrors the tension between these two poems which mirrors the tension of being human. Every soul knows it was made for immortality, yet the body offers constant reminders of its mortality. Whether this paradox brings meaning or nihilism is one of the fundamental branching points in life.

I wonder then if rather than saying ‘I prefer Mrs. Cope’s version’ or ‘I think Shakespeare got it right’ we ought to hold them in harmony rather than competition.

Here is Sonnet 55.

Not marble nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
’Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
    So, till the Judgement that yourself arise,
    You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.