No. 519: The winners
Trevor Grove reports: Competitors were invited to compose an octet, using the given rhyme words, on one of the following subjects : lines to a lover during the recent floods, on seeing Gone With the Wind for the umpteenth time, the return from abroad. And judging from the consequent entries most competitors agreed with Fulke Greville (this week's unguessable source was the first poem from his sequence, `Caelica) that Love is 'the delight of all well-thinking minds.' Witness Brian Allgar, who wins five guineas: At first, my love, my sorrow knew no measure; But while the deluge kept us still asunder, I met a girl who gave me greater pleasure, So rowed across, and gently pushed you under. Alas, my love! I think of you with anguish, For when this dark and swollen flood is healed, No longer will your mermaid body languish; My own true love's demise will be revealed.
Less cavalier in his approach, but equally smooth in his rhyming, N. W. Mudie, who wins three guineas: Full fathom five the road lies under; Drowned is the way to all my pleasure, And the heart alone can measure Distances now we're asunder.
We swell the flood with tears of anguish; But with its passing, grief is healed, And when at last dry land's revealed, Safe in each other's arms we'll languish.
There was a mysterious entry from J. M. Talltree, I suspect indelicate, a piece of Chaucerian bawdy from R. L. Sadler which he claims was inspired by Spenser and four lines from Edward Samson which deserve to be quoted: How doth the raging Thames dilute our pleasure.
Not now in therms, but pints, my love I measure.
Not time but tide has rent us twain asunder; You float above while I am half-seas-under.
The final three guineas go to Andrew Dun- can-Jones. Here is his final stanza : Send forth that longed-for dove, your soul, to measure The gulf dividing us from-every pleasure, And when the flood subsides, its anger healed, New continents of love shall be revealed.
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