Lucy Vickery presents this week’s competition
In Competition No. 2676 you were invited to submit a reply to the poet from Wordsworth’s cuckoo or Keats’s nightingale.
A huge entry yielded an entertaining parade of stroppy birds with a fine line in put-downs. While Wordsworth took the greatest punishment (deservedly, some might say) in terms of volume, the nightingales were on especially withering form.
Everyone shone this week, but Jan D. Hodge, Catherine Tufariello, W.J. Webster, John Beaton and G.W. Tapper stood out and were unlucky losers. The winning entries, printed below, earn their authors £25 apiece; George Simmers pockets the extra five pounds.
Darkling I’ve listened, too, while you orate
About my warbling till I’ve grown quite shirty.
John, mate, I’m singing to attract a mate,
Not ‘pouring forth my soul’ — just being flirty.
That’s what birds do. You think it’s ‘rich to die’,
But we like life (and birds’ lives are not long)
So it should need no genius to know why
We sing the old old song.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in