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Moved to tears Which book, poem or play has made you cry more than any other? Continuing our series, the playwright Simon Gray chooses William Wordsworth's Michael

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From: The Sunday Telegraph London
Date: 20040509
Author:SIMON GRAY

I CRY a lot when watching old films - Shane, La Grande Illusion etc - on television, but only occasionally in the theatre, the last time a couple of years ago, during Dominic Dromgoole's production of The Cherry Orchard at the Riverside. I never cry over novels, unless you count tears of joy when Emma realises that Mr Knightly must marry no one but herself.

As for poems, well, however intense the emotion, the function of verse is to keep the ear pleased, the intelligence active, the eye dry and alert - but Wordsworth's Michael sometimes brings me to the brink. In those last lines inviting us ...

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