No. 1362: The winners

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked for a vernal poem in the manner of Hardy or Hopkins or Housman.

The three Hs have all been gloriously mimicked and parodied before, including in Spectator competitions, but you can have too much of a good thing. My own feeling is that Hardy is the most difficult to do well, Housman the easiest to do badly. and Hopkins, of course, the biggest tech- nical challenge. Interestingly, more of you accepted that challenge than I had ex- pected. Among those who rose to it best were E. L. Bellwringle, simultaneously brilliant and obscure, and A. Harraden, whom I reluctantly rejected as a money- maker because he ended his sonnet with a rhymed couplet, which I thought most unHopkinslike.

The prize-winners get £9 each and the bonus bottle of Vosne Roman& Les Beauxmonts 1980, presented by the Chelsea Arts Club, is Martin Fagg's.

She always loved the crocuses — would watch, Each budding year,

So avidly for their approach, to catch Each yellow spear As through the sodden marl it thrust up straight and clear.

It irked me, why I weet not, that she chose The crocuses

For such high favour: thus, an ailment whose True locus is

Deep down, in slight scarce-noticed pangs first focuses.

She will not see the crocuses this spring, Or e'er again.

Such joy they brought to her: to me they bring Appeaseless pain—

Who understand too late and cannot now explain.

0, for that April we spent together, Those weeks of wondrous windfall weather: For I was Petrarch and you were Laura

And — peerless, pristine — Wessex wore a Look that proclaimed that Gods and men For once strode equal. April then. . •

Far from this April we spend together, Tied by a hobbling wedlock tether: For I am Tom and you are Emma — Not rare, I wis, our dire dilemma, (Martin Fagg) As winds of disillusion sough

Round gloomy gables. April now. . .

(Andrew McEvoy)

Look at the Spring! Look at the looming light! Down in deep dells the drift of celandines! Starburst of petal patens, gold from mines Dug (who knows how?) from depths of darkest

night! See! crocus chalices like beacons bright, Each day-drawn daffodil that shifts and shines, And wood anemones with violet lines

For Lenten penitence veined, stained on white. Now all things burgeon, blossom, break and swell;

And yet this splendour flows from winter's Worst, From womb-dark, tomb-dark, earth-dark prison cell; So Christ, our Saviour, from death's dungeon burst,

Slip-e,

u forth fresh foot from harrowing of Hell, Rose from the grave, of man's frail flesh the first.

(0. Smith)

Dream-drugged I woke one day to chaffinch Chiding

And through a clear cut-crystal air perceived Where formerly frost-furrowed grey grass grieved

in wake of winter, now bold birds were biding. Nimble of nest and nook they glimmered, gliding Through limb of lime and laurel, lapped and leaved. ..„Ileart-hastening, I my fragile frame upheaved to church forth-faring, through the sprung Spring striding.

Noud-punctual preened I in that mellow morning Until unmettled by the chill church chime That brazenbranded me a long latecomer

Who, heedless of the world's watch-winding

warning,

Was yet untuned to the tyrannous time Of Greenwich-grovelling, sunlight-saving summer.

(Noel Petty) Down in the lonely woodland The first faint green awakes And winter's bloom of snowfall Melts into living flakes.

Along the stirring branches Echo the sounds of spring; There voyagers may gather Who have the heart to sing.

They greet the budding season —Though bud and bloom be brief—

While freezes still within me The winter of my grief.

The blossom glows and withers, The rising sap. is spent; Wingless, I mourn for ever The land of lost content. (Mary Holtby) In spring the hawthorn scatters Its snow along the hedge, And thoughts of country matters Run strong on Wenlock Edge.

So fared I, loose and feckless, And met a maiden fair; She wore an amber necklace To match her tawny hair.

Her mouth was soft and willing, Her eyes were like the sea; I offered her a shilling If she would lie with me.

At that she blushed so sweetly, And cast her blue eyes down; Then, whispering discreetly,