No. 484: The winners
Competitors were asked to compose an octet on one of the following subjects : a politician's nightmare, a Casanova's apology or the lyrics for a pop record by the 'Backing Britain' girls.
There was no lack of excellent verse, but a good many competitors seemed to have been struck by some kind of imaginative paralysis. Surely yeah-yeah banalities have long ceased to be characteristic of the best pop lyrics : a pas- tiche of C. Day-Lewis and the Beatles would have been perfect. Alas, no politician took this golden opportunity of winning a bit of public sympathy by publishing a choice nightmare : that the real struggles of conscience occur not at Westminster, but on sleepless pillows throughout the country and to the accompani- ment of endless, futile rounds of cocoa, is a fact widely suspected but so far never proved. Cbm- petitors who were unsure how to approach the subject might have done worse than refer to lolanthe: 'When you're lying awake, with a dismal headache/And repose is taboo'd by anxiety. . ..' Whether or not the present Chan- cellor is a lean and hungry insomniac, competi- tors tended to agree that Casanova was a fellow to whom sleep meant very little—witness H. A. C. Evans's wilting hero : My lady, mea culpa! Now I swear I was indeed enchanted by your fair And frolic ways, and fully of a mind .
To pleasure you. Alas! I was to find That in the lists of love I could not meet The brave achievement looked for by my sweet.
Forgive me that too high I set my sights And know your beauty e'er will haunt my nights.
Five guineas, then, to Mr Evans, three to Brian Allgar whose entry would no doubt win the old lecher's approval: I said I love you; yet I find That your attractions grow with time less sweet, Less irresistible than when we first did meet. Those early, fleeting sights Of pretty girls are always tempting; but the nights That follow sometimes disappoint.- I swear I love you for your body fair— But leave you for your mind.
And three guineas to Yolande Pierre for a charming lyric with a sting in its tail: You know that I could never hope to find Another girl so loving or so fair As you. Why do you ask me, then, to swear Never to leave you? Though our love is sweet, For honour's sake I think we should not meet So frequently; but you will haunt my mind Each day I'm forced to gaze on duller sights, And I, for love, will sleepless spend my nights.
J. M. Crooks wins the special prize of one guinea for identifying the source as Donne's 'Goe and catch a falling star.'
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