Charms for Midsummer

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 381 Report by Papoose The usual prizes were offered for an astrological charm for incantation at the summer solstice.

As R. Kennard Davis remarked some months ago in these columns, the trouble about setting . competitions is that one cannot enter for them oneself. To me an astrological incantation sug- gests infinite possibilities : rich romantic poetry stemming from Macbeth or Kubla Khan, magical formula, Zoroaster, the Chaldeans (not to men- tion Mr. Carroll Richter), and humorous skits on any of them. Alas, few competitors went farther afield than the signs of the zodiac, and, with some exceptions, their entries, poor in quantity as well as quality, showed a dreary sameness in the treatment of this theme. There were one or two variations on it : a plea for a world at peace (J. Aitken), 'Ere we meet the final bust. Showered with atomic dust' (P. W. R. Foot). Areas made the Test Match his subject :

Pisces in the ascendant yield Dabs and flounders in the field.

L. E. Honnor used technical solar terms with humorous effect : By thy dark and mystic spots Foil the Tax Man's wicked plots.

And Allan M. Laing submitted 'A charm to make a girl's hair curl.'

Of the above, only the last-mentioned seemed to me to read like an incantation. Rhoda Tuck Pook, however, S. M. Mansell, D. R. Peddy and Elspeth did succeed in achieving an incantatory effect, the latter being also commended for her witty ending :

High up my entry—lis heavenly—'-r WINS On the other hand, it was the weakness of the last line that prevented P. M.'s from being a winner (and does Poll really rhyme with knoll?). Also commended are the well-shaped verses of D. L. L. Clarke, G. J. Blundell and Guy Kendall.

I suggest that two guineas should go to J. A. Lindon for his sheer vitality, the movement getting faster and faster, the dance wilder and wilder; and a guinea each to Gloria Prince for her most competent and pleasing verse, H. A. C. Evans for humour and a good climax, R. A. McKenzie for two incantations showing mastery of rhythm, and to Doc Hop who shows what can be done without the aid of rhyme and metre.

PRIZES

(i. A. L1NDON)

Sun at the solstice of summer, my horoscope May need a telescope. Haven't one. Borrow scope! (Nothing will rhyme except fingerprint-poroscopc Use 'em at Scotland Yard, much to my sorrowscope!) Are you my star? If you are, make tomorrow's scope Wider than that of today : a Good-Lor ! oscope- What? Is it really a luck-evermoroscope?

Not (with me outside) a shutting-the-dooroscope? Make it a lovely romantic amouroscope; Lively with travel—and not a Cook's-Touroscope- Yacht-in -the-tropics (perhaps) then-ashoroscope (Cut out the labour, I don't want a chore-oscope!) Healthily-happily-live-to-fourscoroscope; Not an atomic-and-hydrogen-waroscope And as for money, a guineas-galoroscope Let's say a jubilant-competitoroscope!

(Must be authentic, not just an Old-Mooroscope!)

(GLORIA PRINCE)

Midsummer Sun Most High,

Permit that I

May gain a little brightness from your blaze, A little richness from your golden store, A loftier station for my humble praise, A warmer heart, the wiser to adore : Godstar of Gliders, Ouch my greying hair; Lord of Full Curves, more ample make my own; Grant of your Fruitfulness that I may bear A child again, before my days are flown; Make me not over-sanguine, fiery, dry, But fearless and electric, vital, strong; And, Patron of the Feminine Right Eye,

Vouchsafe that mine see not when 1 do wrong!

(D. A. C. EVANS)

Adsit Libra in my purse; Absit Cancer villainous; And when picnicking I go Absit then Aquarius; Adsit Pisces when I'm off To the river for the day;

Let me stay there undisturbed-

Absit Taurus far away; Adsit Virgo pure and chaste When I meet my wife-to-be; When at last she's brought to bed, A-ab-absint Gemini!

(R. A. MCKENZIE)

Sun on high in Gemini, Lord of fission, heat emission, Lord of fusion (peace illusion), Great Inventor : at the centre,

Twenty million—not a chilly 'un,

I'm afraid, sir—centigrade, sir!

(Carbon Cycle even Ike'll —If Presiding—not be riding; Nor will Khrushchev yet have pushed y'off From that saddle which you straddle!) Star of rife tellural life, Ever-glowing God of growing, Grant my boon this blazing June : Never change your thermal range, To become as cold as some, Or, by Jove, a Super Nova!

(Doc HOP) (To be chanted while dancing widdershins wit1 the nose pointing to the Pole Star.)

Oh sidereal solstice! Oh Sclenographic Azimuth! Oh awcful Albedo! Lean from thy right ascension turn your favouring cusps towards me from your secular syzygy and pour down on me good fortune Oh Sun, who through the anomalistic year turn: through the celestial plane, and wheels past the synodic spheres, let me no longer suffer from c defect of illumination, but pour down on me thy bolometric light. Thou who are fishier than Pisces( less controversial than Cancer, less subject to tai twitching than Leo, incline thy elliptical orbit to me, thy perilous perihelion, descend thy node and bring me luck.

COMMENDED (p.

Sol, Sol, Pretty Poll, Perched on Summer's highest knoll? — Now Cancer, claw to claw, doth grip you No sprawling Gemini shall trip you, Capricorn nor Aries nip you, Leo maul, nor Taurus rip you, Sagittarius' arrow chip you, Damp Aquarius' bucket drip you, Scorpio whip you. Libra tip you, Virgo lip you, Pisces flip you, Nor any cloud of Heaven cclip you Or stray across your Gold embossure!

Let trumpets sound! Remember Joshua, And in your solisticial zenithing Stand still for us, and shine like anything!