Answering back

In Competition No. 2779 you were invited to submit Maud’s reply to Tennyson.

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Matthew Parris

What if Trump is just bonkers?

It was Joyce Grenfell’s magnificently ball-breaking riposte to the invitation to ‘Come into the garden, Maud’ that inspired the challenge, and in general your responses referenced this section of the poem. You were on equally feisty form, having little truck with the narrator’s lurking in the bushes and talking to flowers. Honourable mentions go to unlucky losers Crispian Cartwright, Graham King, Douglas G. Brown, Frank Kershaw and Roger Theobald. The winners earn £25; W.J. Webster takes £30.
 

Alfred, dear, you are very sweet
To wait at the gate all night,
But I have danced quite off my feet,
And dawn offers little delight.
With the sky only changing from sable to grey
And dew sopping wet on the grass,
In response to your call, I fear I must say
Regretfully, Alfred, I pass.
You still can converse with the flowers of your choice,
In the way you are wonted to do:
I am sure they rejoice at the sound of your voice
With the same rapt attention as you.
I shall wave from the casement before I retire
To find a soft place for my head,
And hope my withdrawal at least may inspire
A collection of verses instead.
W.J. Webster
 
On the last of our joint horticultural trips
I contracted, I’m sorry to tell,
Both black spot and mildew plus rose-mite and
thrips
And you laddered my stockings as well.
 
So it’s all your own fault that I’ll not be your guest
And that Nature’s once bounteous charm
I can now only view with reluctance, at best,
And you with a sense of alarm.
 
For my mildew smells rank and my rose-mite now
stings
And I finally see what is true —
That my garden is full of some unwelcome things,
The least welcome of which being you.
 
So your now-garden-phobic systemic-sprayed
Maud
Says that though you may temptingly coo
That the sweet ‘woodbine’s spices are wafted
abroad’
She wishes that you were there too.