Bloody men are like bloody rockets, you wait nearly five billion years and as soon as one feels up your craters another Apollo appears…
Rufus Rutherford, channelling Basho, submitted a charming haiku. And Robert Schechter, as Ogden Nash, also kept it brief:To the marvellous event that happened fifty years ago I dedicate this ode. The first man on the moon, you say? That was pretty good, but what I had in mind was Abbey Road.
The brightest stars this week are printed below and win £25 each.W.J. Webster/Alexander Pope God’s fiat let there be two kinds of light, One bringing day, the other soft’ning night. The gods of myth then made these roles their own, The sun as male, the moon as female shown. Celestially remote, they reigned divine, Their pow’rs bewitching, awesome or benign. But lo! this landing brought them both to ground, Their majesty dispelled, their heads uncrowned. Ex deo machina, Apollo came To yield his fiery chariot — and his name; Selene, ever seen demurely fair, Had all her desert dust and rock laid bare. The heavens’ mysteries all stand revealed When human probing leaves no secret sealed. Such ventures are of negligible worth: Man’s proper sphere of study is the Earth.
Alan Millard/John Betjeman Ring out the mighty bells of Bow And all the streets with flags festoon For, half a century ago, Apollo landed on the moon. I often dream that we were there One giant leap from all mankind, With earth-glow lighting up your hair And bombed-out Slough left far behind. I’d see you looking quite divine, My burnished, strong-limbed, fearless love, You, in your space suit, I in mine Beneath the twinkling stars above; Let politicians rant and rail For mad and sad they’ll always be While we in gay abandon sail The calm Sea of Tranquillity.
Basil Ransome-Davies/Rudyard Kipling The press called it the Space Race, like it was a sportin’ test, A runnin’ competition with the East against the West. The lunar teams were all prepared, the tactics well re’earsed, And people watched in wonderment to see ’oo’d get there first.
It was all mixed up with politics, and that’s a dirty game, But pioneering moonshots call for ’eroes all the same, The kind that leaves the earth be’ind and flies in outer space To beat the opposition and to save a nation’s face.
The bit o’ rock they landed on was called Tranquillity, A berth that’s not an ’aven in a sea that’s not a sea. There was no rules for doin’ what was never done before, But Faith and Science shook ’ands to return a winning score.
All that is ’alf a century back, but what about today? Tranquillity just ain’t the word to name the state o’ play. Two men became immortal with their two hours on the moon, But the way the world is going we shan’t see such ’eroes soon.
Sylvia Fairley/Lewis Carroll ’Twas lift-off and the lunic team Did whirl and whizzle into space To vitalise their squambic scheme And gumble in the moonish race.
To buzz and kneel by lunar seas There came a bold and plambic plan To prove the moon’s not made of cheese, Then take a strantic step for man.
Now fifty flumbish years have passed, With countless ramblous re-enactions Of star-ish stripes tied to a mast, With daring deeds and vortive actions.
And oh, my beamish boy, this rhyme With joy outgrabes that great endeavour: Though astronauts will fade in time The show goes on and on forever.
D.A. Prince/W.H. Auden As man walked out that that morning, Walking upon the Moon, The crowds glued to their tellies Were watchers in a swoon.
As mankind placed his footstep Where never man had trod Some lovers sighed their pledges While thinkers pondered God.
But fifty years run quickly Like water through a sieve; The Moon cannot instruct you Nor tell you how to live.
Or how Earth’s time is fleeting; So small, so blue, soon gone, And mankind kills his birthright While Time will still run on.
Your next challenge is to submit a poem that begins ‘By Waterloo station I sat down and …’. Email entries of up to 16 lines to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 30 October.
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