Spectator competition winners: Rondeaus on a summery theme

In Competition No. 3204, you were invited to supply a rondeau with a summery theme.

The best-known English rondeau is the Canadian poet and doctor John McRae’s first world war poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ (which inspired the use of the poppy as a symbol of remembrance). But the form has it roots in medieval and Renaissance French poetry and perhaps it was this that prompted David Silverman to submit his jaunty, mischievous offering, celebrating the prospect of a lack of British tourists in that country this year, in French:

Les Anglais ne viennent pas cet été.Ah! Dansons donc et chantons rondelays!

Other strong performers, in a pleasingly wide-ranging entry, included Susan McLean, Paul Freeman, David Shields and Frank McDonald. I also admired Max Ross’s Wordsworthian submission and Nigel Stuart’s well-made cri de coeur.

The winners below take £25 each.

Across the mead a maiden fair,Adorned with daisies in her hair,Strolled through the grass with softest tread,This season’s flowers about her spread,As I, transfixed, stood gazing there.  Birds circled round her in the airWhile on she walked without a careThrough poppies glowing vibrant redAcross the mead.  Her robes were white, her feet were bare,Both dazzling in the sun’s bright glare,I asked her name by interest led,‘My name is Summer, sir,’ she said,Before she fled, this vision rare,Across the mead.Alan Millard

The nights are drawing in we sayAs, skipping past the Longest Day,And out into the sun-stilled peace,With months to run on summer’s lease,  We fall to making hayThe closure of our matinee’sA hundred curtain calls away,Yet soon the shrouded obsequies  Are drawing inInconstant summer’s greens go grey,The clouds roll in, and rain stops play,The picnic ends, we leave the crease,Inured to summer’s soft caprice,For autumn days of rich decayAre drawing inNick Syrett

The tourists swarm, the carparks fill, on bustling beaches bodies grill, an overdressed, invading pack, to slum it in their five-star shack, with extra friends; you know the drill.