No. 506: The winners
Trevor Grove reports: Competitors were asked to compose an octet, using the given rhyme- words, on one of the following subjects: a meteorologist bemoans his native clime; the apotheosis of Danny le Rouge, a Liberal honey- moon.
Entries this week were heavily biased—to the benefit of the weatherman and to the almost total exclusion of Messrs Cohn:Bendit and Thorpe. Danny, of course. must seriously haste prejudiced his chances of instant godhead by announcing to the world tha• he was not, after all, a student leader but a megaphone. Mr Thorpe, on the other hand, has been posing as a megaphone for some time; but what is now quite plain is that those very low-frequency sounds emitted by the Liberal party in activity are better relayed by the echo-chamber of his absence. Leadership crises may come and go and competitors obviously shared the general unconcern: the weather is a more serious matter all together, as 0. M. Martin, who wins five guineas, makes clear:
Cirri and cumuli are my complaint —The hazy herpes of our hemisphere. Such scabrous strata would provoke a saint To make his own apostasy appear.
For faith with fantasy is overcast And weather prophecy is marred by fate. Present and future join to mock the past, So on futilities we meditate.
Three guineas to J. M. Crooks for a neat, brief lamentation: My love, this sitting must adjourn, Despite your motion of complaint. The Party calls its patron saint, And 'Who goes home?' bids me return.
Though fortune's skies seem overcast, No jeremiad cures our fate: To stand alone and meditate, On liberal blessings in the past.
And Michele Roberts would undoubtedly have won a prize but for her very liberal atti- tude to the rules in line four: Methought I saw my late-espoused saint Lean chin (well shaved) on band and make complaint, 'Alack!' quoth he, 'tis now a few weeks past Our nuptials—dalliance over, cast Will be the votes to choose my second fate —Bestowing of liberal favours I meditate, So, love, let's frolic, gay, until the House adjourn, Then, Liberal favour won, secure a safe Return.'
And a guinea to G. W. Winzer for identifying the source of the rhymes as 'The Exequy- by Henry King.
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