Spectator competition winners: sonnets on Mammon

In Competition No. 3250, you were invited to submit a sonnet to Mammon.

It was ‘Epigram for Wall Street’, attributed to the oft-impoverished Edgar Allan Poe, that prompted me to set this moolah-themed challenge. In a large, thoughtful and winningly varied entry, there were echoes ranging from Keats, Milton and Barrett Browning to Gordon Gekko.

Katie Mallett, Janine Beacham, George Simmers, David Silverman, Bob Trewin and Ralph Bateman earn honourable mentions. The winners, printed below, pocket £20 each.

Mammon, I love you. Let me count the ways, Although that’s strictly my accountant’s chore. I live delights and scorn laborious days Thanks to my wealth, while hungering for more. I build portfolios, by love possessed. Such words as ‘leverage’ are holy writ. Lucre is never filthy. Greed is blessed. The rapture, the divine romance of it! I love you as an oligarch loves yachts, Or Texans love a gushing oil well. I love you as I love those ritzy spots That cater to a upscale clientele Swimming in loot, dinero, wonga, dosh. As for the poor, ‘qu’ils mangent de la brioche’. Basil Ransome-Davies

Getting and spending, we find riches good, For purse strings are with heartstrings intertwined. Unjustly is the golden calf maligned; When we feel moved to strive for wealth, we should. ‘It’s evil to love money!’ That falsehood (In every schoolchild’s adage hoard enshrined), Has, by misguiding many a youthful mind, Left capital’s romance misunderstood.   Commerce has built up nations, science, art. The ground and bulwark of our lives is money. No disposition would for long stay sunny If our financial system fell apart. Despite the grim knell socialists have tolled, We quite like travel in the realms of gold. Chris O’Carroll

A god thou art that stands beyond compare, That claims no truth, that issues no commands; Lacks holy writ and calls no one to prayer, Holds out high hopes yet makes no strict demands.