Visitor aboard the Enterprise? Not my favorite. Uhura not taking crap from anybody? Getting warmer. A superior being that makes you explain yourself for your own sake. Now we’re cookin’!
And yet … who gets the sonnet?
The Pandronian as a colony creature is a culture unto himself who, seemingly villainous, was more judgemental than anything else to the point that — upon seeing the error of his ways — judged himself no longer worthy of living.
Uhura kept everyone to the book when they would have otherwise gone against the Prime Directive in order to satisfy their emotional turmoil over Kirk and Spock going missing.
The God-like Femme who calls the to-be-explored planet’s aboriginal society Her Children, and spoke words of forgiveness to the Pandronian, sent everyone off with words of wisdom that concluded with “Go in peace. Go in peace.” as though it were time for the recessional hymn at the end of Sunday mass.
She, a superior species no doubt, didn’t even test Kirk or the crew. she simply asked them to explain themselves when they went “against” their word. And it seemed to be more for their sake than for Hers, though Kirk’s tone makes it clear he was oblivious to such.
So … who gets the sonnet? Try to guess:
Sonnet 80
We come in piece. We go in peace.
We take no more than what we brought
and to the great beyond release
no more than all the deeds we've wrought.
Forget all answers to your test
for here is but a place to rest
and resting learning so to grow
into a time with more to know.
So see we all how we have erred,
and erring learned how to go forth
with every growing sense of north
that by and by more lives are spared
the punishment without a rhyme
that reason shall dispel in time.