Competitions nos. 147A and 147B: results

Clennell Wilkinson suggests an ode to the Christmas Stilton, begging it not to grow over-ripe too soon, and in the manner of Herrick’s ‘Fair Daffodils’:

Fair Daffodils, we weep to see

         You haste away so soon;

As yet the early-rising sun

         Has not attain’d his noon.

                        Stay, stay,

                Until the hasting day

                        Has run

                But to the even-song;

And, having pray’d together, we

Will go with you along.

 

We have short time to stay, as you,

         We have as short a spring;

As quick a growth to meet decay,

         As you, or anything.

                        We die

                As your hours do, and dry

                        Away,

                Like to the summer’s rain;

Or as the pearls of morning’s dew,

Ne’er to be found again.

Wilkinson is surprised to find that there are many WR readers who don’t actually like Stilton, but thinks the standard of entry – a compliment for the competitors at last! – is very high. He gives out three prizes to Lester Ralph, to B.R. Gibbs, and to William Bliss, because, wouldn’t you know it, the B competition is in trouble again. But Wilkinson is right: these are good (Herrick is a hard poet to parody).

The B competition was for an epigram on the following three rulers: Charles II, Henry VIII and Oliver Cromwell. (There seems no reason why this should be set.) A George Robey effort is offered as an example:

Music hall star Robey (1869-1854) was still very much alive, by the way

But he wouldn’t have thought a lot of the sole winning entry, which comes from Eremita, and which runs as follows: