Spectator competition: poets’ selfies (plus: liven up something mundane with a dose of magic realism)

The latest challenge, to compose a poet’s elegy for him or herself, took you down a path trod by poor Chidiock Tichborne. He wrote his own elegy, the poignant ‘Tichborne’s Elegy’, in 1586, on the night before his execution, aged 28, for his part in a conspiracy against Elizabeth I. Nicholas Stone’s entry, in which he channels the inventor of the clerihew, E.C. Bentley, is rather more upbeat:

Edmund Clerihew Bentley Slept fairly contently; But at his life’s close He found total repose.

And Mae Scanlan came up with neat twists on Christina Rossetti’s ‘When I am dead, my dearest’ and Rupert Brooke’s ‘The Soldier’. In fact, you were all good this week. Commiserations go to Peter Smalley, Barbara Smoker, Max Ross, Sylvia Fairley and Chris Gleed, who narrowly missed the cut. The winners earn £25 each. Brian Allgar trousers £30.

Brian Allgar/Shakespeare I’faith, I cannot say which is the worse: To fade into oblivion, forgot, Or for my shade to live on through my verse And mock me that it is, when I am not. When I have shuffled off this mortal coil, Sans eyes, sans other bits, sans everything, Shall people say ‘God rest him from his toil’, Or ‘Dead, you say? Ne’er mind, the play’s        the thing’ ? I have gone here and there to slake my lust And slake my thirst, yet lust and thirst shall        end; Like chimney-sweepers, I must come to dust, Though words live on. So think on this, my        friend:

‘Much hath he left that is remembered still, Yet, being mortal, could not leave a Will’.

Chris O’Carroll/A.E. Housman My time was always running out, My faith in doom always devout. No scholarly attainments can Revise the fate prescribed for man.

I never looked on blooming spring Without chill thoughts of wintering, Nor ever drew a living breath Unmindful of impending death.

I knew what would in time betide Each muscular young lad I eyed, And knew that I must lie someday Beside them all beneath the clay.

You shall be dust like me ere long, For pessimism’s never wrong. It came at last, my time to go. I knew it would. I told you so.

Brian Murdoch/John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester Soon shall I meet Lord Death, who scorns all        locks, With his twin scythes, Cirrhosis and the Pox! As I have lived, if I should die so well, Then I will take the easy road to Hell, And shall the burning pitchforks not disdain, Since I shall be with all my friends again, Who relish devilry and fiery pricks. And then I’ll teach Satan a few new tricks! But if what Heaven takes all sinners in — E’en a devoted rake and libertine? I, Rochester, poet and English earl Shall lurch triumphant through the gates of        pearl And go and stand before the throne of thrones, Then shall I say to God in mighty tones: So many charges men could lay on you! And then I’ll go and find some nuns to screw.

Basil Ransome-Davies/Patience Strong There came the day, as come it must, When Patience Strong returned to dust, A poet whose uplifting rhymes Consoled the downcast in hard times. Whenever dark clouds hid the sun And life held very little fun Her verses were warm rays of hope That cheered up those inclined to mope. As through this world our way we wend We cannot know the final end, Yet goodly folk may be assured That faith will bring its own reward, If only in the memory Of loving friends and family. Grieve not for me. I am twice blest, Immortal, though now laid to rest.

G.M. Davis/Ogden Nash Now that America’s laureate of light verse,        Ogden Nash is Reduced to ashes Here’s an all-American, non-Tennysonian In        Memoriam From beyond the crematorium. Folks say that everything will be peaceful Once you are deceaseful, That you will never be as chagrined as You were in this vale of tears when your remains        are cinders, So though loved ones may weep and rend their        garments And celebrations will be held by hostile varmints, Adopt the upbeat attitude of Samuel Beckett And just say ‘feck it’. Actually I plan to be interred in a cemetery Not burned in a crematory, But let me give you a quote from the Bard that is        highly appertaining: The truest poetry is the most feigning.

Sylvia Fairley/Gerard Manley Hopkins Life’s end, the death-drift I must bear, Seeking sorrow’s springs, féared to be gay. My bowel, fóul-fésted, drains my day, Soft-shifted shades dárkening my despair.

Wórds búrned, smoke-spiralling in air As incense, scented, heaven-sent; I pray To ease the tells of torment, dark, not day, My sins, self-purged, desirèd to declare.

Yet nature’s rhythm entices me to write New-sprung, new born, new-crafted words to        bend, To plót and piece the world in dappled light.

Now failure flays me, fever-fracked I wend Thróugh dárk and light, despair, delight, Murmuring I’m so happy, at the end.

Your next challenge is to choose something mundane — notes from a parish council meeting or the weather forecast, for example — and filter it through the lens of magic realism. Please email entries of up to 150 words to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 1 October.