SPECTATOR COMPETITION—No. II Report by R. Kennard Davis

A prize of £5 was offered for a poem in twelve lines beginning :- Bravely in my garden grow Drangea (high) and Belie (low) . . .

The opening couplet had been flitting about the back of my mind for a long time, and I had never succeeded in adding to it.

I awaited the entries, therefore, with some trepidation. Would there be any ? Would everyone else prove to have been baffled as I was 'Z I need not have feared. As the postman delivered the swollen envelopes from the Spectator office, and I turned out their contents, I became amazed at the number and the ingenuity of the poems pi esented for my judgement ; thankful, too, that my wife possessed an encyclopaedia of gardening.

I should like to begin by expressing my gratitude to the com- petitors for their legibility. Only two of all the scripts sent in were at all hard to decipher ; one of these proved to be among the best half-dozen, when I managed to read it! Thanks,too, to .those who added a list of the plants whose names they had put through the mangle ; this saved me a lot of research in the volume referred to above.

Now for the criticism. What was required, to match the open- ing, was a set of punning lines that should flow easily and make good, plausible nonsense, with, if possible, a touch of wit and imagination. I felt obliged to eliminate, to start with, those who made no attempt to keep up the punning, despite the fact that some of them had written pleasing little poems. Next came a large phalanx of the merely ingenious, who sent in what were little more than rhyming catalogues of inverted botanical names. "Lamens " were sick by platoons, and " Anthuses " died in battalions ! I gave up counting the " Cusses " that crew, and the " Detias " that went ! There were many who spoiled promising attempts by a single weak couplet, a false rhyme or a few redundant syllables. One good effort was disqualified because the writer tried to work in an extra couplet by treating the two opening lines as one and matching them with another of double length.

There were several politicians, who rang the changes on Urnum (Lab) and Volvulus (Con), with references to Atis (Clem) and Gella (Nye) ; not without introducing Thrift and Honesty. How- ever, I feel strongly that politics are out of place in the garden.

J. M. Couper sent a protest which, I feel, deserves quotation.

Bravely in my garden grow Drangea (high) and Belia (low).

—Society is all for rude Pedestrian exactitude : No unassuming beauty that May quietly be Marvelled at.

Yet we do ill to make life lie With Belia (low) and Drangea (high) And would do well to travel back The long three-hundred-year-ly track To gardens (plain) that poets stir To rhyme in neat tetrameter.

Dr. P. H. Hewitt's contribution may be of interest to smokers, and others, in these difficult times.

Bravely in my garden grow Drangea (high) and Belia (low). Alkaloidal lobeline, Substitutes for nicotine.

No more saying, " Player's Please" Smoking Belia's heady leaves. When my stomach feels abuse Drangea (high) is what I use. For her roots (now so they say) Make, on grinding, Powder (grey). Nearest to the drug I know ; Drargyri (hy) cum Creta Co !

It is difficult to make a selection from a large number of com- mendable poems. Among those which I liked were the entries submitted by Mrs. Phyllis Camps, D.E.E.C., Miss'S. E. Eddis, Mrs. S. Battersby, Anne Outram, Mrs. Anita Evans, Rev. E. R. Micklem, Mrs. M. Stanier, Hugh Lyon, W.R.C., Dr. F. 0. Brown (whose puns were particularly scandalous), and W. T. Williams (who combined learning with profanity). I salute " Bretoni " for a gallant effort, and Ivy Barnsdall, Robert Macdonald and Linda Hillier for promising work. ■ I recommend that a first prize of £3 be awarded to Margaret Usborne, in spite of a rather weak first couplet, and a second prize of £2 to P. M. for the better of two good entries. It will be noticed that neither prize-winner adheres strictly to the pattern of inversion set in the original couplet. I think so much latitude is legitimate, as long as the spirit of paronomasia is maintained.

•

FIRST PRIZE

(Miss MARGARET USBORNE) Bravely in my garden grow Drangea (high) and Belia (low).

And there on lawns of brightest green Are Aconight and Daysy seen.

There Maidens Blush when Cockscombs pass.

Eyebright, to court Alyssum lass.

But Rose is Prim, though William's Sweet And Love-lies-bleeding at her feet.

Poor Robin, watching o'er his Phlox,

Seeks Heartsease, while his Daphne mocks.

She scorns the Shepherd's Purse, I'm told, And vows, with Thrift, she'll Marigold.

SECOND PRIZE (P.M.) Bravely in my gardeh grow Drangea (high) and Belia (low) And, like notes that chime, reply Maria (low) and Biscus (high) Larkspur here, and there's Acorns—

Our Petunias sounding for us!— Paeonies with praises ring, Lin and Wist their arias sing In the Everlasting hum (Perpetuum Ammobium!) With Dittany and Trillium I raise to God my Helianthemum.