Spectator competition winners: Shakespeare on eyebrows

This time round you were asked to submit Shakespeare’s newly discovered ‘Woeful ballad to his mistress’ eyebrows’, as referred to by Jaques in As You Like It (‘…And then the lover,/ Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad/ Made to his mistress’ eyebrow…’). For the purposes of this challenge, a ballad could be any sort of poem (most of you wrote sonnets) and anachronisms were allowed. The prizewinners, in another fiercely contested week, take £20.

Basil Ransome-Davies What blessing crowns thy outward loveliness? A coiffed, enrapturing head of sable hair That blazes rank above the common press. Yet there is hair invisible elsewhere. Those secret, curling wisps that underlie Thy gorgeous panoply of silk and lace Intemperately appear to my mind’s eye, Prompting low stirrings in another place. Then as I spur my mind to higher things, I worship at thy temple, where twin arcs, As softly supple as the downy wings Of fledgling finches, flaunt the swooping marks Of grace and beauty both. Thereon I dwell, Love’s prisoner in his chaste, adoring cell.

George Simmers Suave eyebrow, can’t you guess how much I suffer? Last evening your sweet owner heard me praised, And straight away I saw you archly raised, Implying I’m the merest twerp or duffer. Then later, when I tried to hint I care, You and your lovely twin slid swiftly down To darkly shape a grim excluding frown, Then, sloping nosewards, framed a hostile stare.

And yet, the more I’m shunned, the more I feel A mighty love for eyebrows so expressive, The more I’m driven by a hope obsessive That all my dreams one day might be made real When you and your dear partner rise above Wide-irised eyes, all open to my love.

Bill Greenwell My mistris Brows, th’art black as Soot But ah! thou both be bonny Though dark as silken Bumbershoot Hey nonny

Thou curvest as the Lyre or Lute When heartstruck Lovers sing Each furry as the Bandicoot Hey-a-ding

Like Caterpillars at a root, Thou bristle, writhe or loll And feed like Moss upon yon Fruit Fol-de-rol

Of Hemp thy thickness, or of Jute And richest in the Middle Like a Bruin must I make thy bruit Fal-the-diddle

Alan Millard ‘Why gaze thee not into mine eyes,’ Asked she, ‘but on some point above?’ ‘In truth,’ said I, ‘I’ll tell no lies, Thy brows intrigue me more my love.’

‘Indeed!’ quoth she, ‘Pray tell me, do, Why so?’ ‘Because,’ did I retort, ‘They have an oddly ginger hue And being burnt seem strangely short.’

‘’Twas Raleigh bid me try’, she cried, ‘Tobacco,’ whereon she did cringe, ‘Thus, foolishly to smoke I tried And thereby did my eyebrows singe.’

Despoiled, alas, with both brows burned She forthwith hid them ’neath her hood, And, chastened, said, ‘This have I learned: Nought from America brings good.’

Sylvia Fairley My mistress’ eyebrows measure her disdain, Their form describes her ever changing mood, Yet when she frowns on me I try in vain To curb a passion that must be subdued. Those hirsute curves, perchance I fall from grace, Are lock’d in disapproval and despair; I little care if she be fair of face, Whilst suff’ring torment from her facial hair. A knitted brow — forsooth, I dread this sign, Methinks when thus, I’d leave the stage to Marlowe, Brows meeting in a fierce and rigid line, A phantom of the future — Frida Kahlo. Those eyes so fine, I fear what lurks above, To threaten and, alas, destroy my love.

Ann Drysdale My mistress’ brows are more than I can bear. It takes her half an hour to draw them on, The outsides pointy and the insides square, A new, unnatural phenomenon. Great slabs of black they seem, crudely defined. The arbitrary lines above her nose Are always marginally misaligned As are the two thick wings that spring from those. The pretty whiskers that I loved to kiss Are now subsumed beneath these dark usurpers And all her mystic metamorphosis Is concentrated on a single purpose. She little cares for eyelid, lip or cheek Now that her eyebrows have to be on fleek.

Chris O’Carroll My mistress’ eyes are nothing like bald pates Uncrowned by glossy ornaments of hair. The portals to her soul are sacred gates Both overarched by pennants brave and fair. Mark how expressively twin emblems rise, Hover, sink, knit together, draw apart In tender or tormented exercise. Heart’s truth they blazon in swift glide and dart. One languid lift or playful slant can spell A boor’s dismissal or a lover’s tryst. A pair on high high wonder doth excel, Eyes widened, brow by heaven’s laughter kissed. So long as common lines praise one rare she, Thus treasured may her smallest feature be.

In this week’s Diary Sam Leith reflects on Boris Johnson’s political career in the metre of Longfellow’s ‘Hiawatha’: ‘Mayor of London Boris Johnson/ Much admired the lady’s pole-dance/ Mentored well her start-up business…’. Your next challenge is to take up the story where Sam left off. Please email entries of up to 16 lines to lucy@spectator.co.uk by mid-day on 1 January.