Second hand

In Competition No. 2759 you were invited to submit a well-known poem rewritten by another well-known poet. You were outstandingly good this week and there are lots of unlucky losers. Honourable mentions to Graham King, Janet Kenny, Jerome Betts, Barbara Smoker and Gerard Benson and a hearty pat on the back all round. Those printed below earn £25 each; Noel Petty takes the extra fiver.

The church tower casts an ever-lengthening shade
And evening cloaks the dismal rural scene.
Beneath these stones the hamlet’s dead are laid.
How devilish dull their living must have been!
No claret, cards or courtesans repaid
Their tedious agricultural routine.
I fancy, though, if I’d been humble clay
I’d still have found some fun along the way.

A would-be Virgil may be buried here
Whose rural verse ne’er saw the printed page;
Perhaps a village Socrates lies near
Who played his days out as a rustic sage;
And ’neath these solemn yews a well-tuned ear
Might hear a Homer for our fallen age.