Speccie Answering Back by 3rd January
 

No. 2779: answering back

You are invited to submit Maud’s reply to Tennyson (16 lines maximum). Please email entries, wherever possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 3 January.

This is another one I'd swear is a repeat.

Sounds wonderful. I edited a whole book of "reply poems" once, but nobody thought about Maud.

I remember Joyce Grenfell doing this one, though not in the Spectator.

Here is my own rapid first draft --

On the last of our joint horticultural trips
I contracted, I'm sorry to tell,
both black spot and mildew plus rose-mite and thrips
and my stockings got laddered as well.

So its all your own fault that I'll not be your guest
and that Nature's once bounteous charm
I can now only view with reluctance, at best,
and a mounting degree of alarm.

For my mildew smells rank and my rose-mite now stings
and I finally see what is true --
that my garden is full of some unwelcome things,
the least welcome of which being you.

So your now-garden-phobic systemic-sprayed Maud
says that though you may temptingly coo
that the sweet "woodbine's spices are wafted abroad"
she wishes that you were there too.

Come into my kitchen, Lord Tennyson;
I’ve seen how you give me the eyeball.
I’m boiling a stew of fine venison.
Relax, and I’ll mix you a highball.

It is midnight, and done is the dance;
A draught from my cup makes you drowsy.
You have urges to get in the pants
Of maidens like me, slightly frowsy.

You think I’m a sexual thriller;
But Alf, I am virginally chaste.
Why, in fact I’m a serial killer
With cannibalistical tastes.

You entered with visions of wooing,
But now that your breathing has ceased;
I will soon have your body a-stewing,
And you’ll make a delectable feast.


(I must admit that I have always been more of a fan of that other British Alfred, Alfred Hitchcock.)

So should this be just a generalised refusal to go into a garden?
Tennyson's poem (which I think is brilliant) is a complex psychodrama. Writing a response from his Maud would be difficult, maybe, but not impossible.

Actually, I imagine the whole poem is available. For instance, the lady might reasonably resent his description of her face as "icily regular, splendidly null".

Benchmark
 

This is the Joyce Grenfell version that Martin mentioned.

Maud won't come into the garden.
Maud is compelled to state
Though you stand for hours
In among the flowers
Down by the garden gate.
Maud won't come into the garden.
Sing to her as you may -
Maud says she begs your pardon
But she wasn't born yesterday.

Maud's not coming into the garden
Thanking you just the same.
Though she looks so pure
You can be quite sure
She's onto your little game.
Maud knows she's being damping -
(And how damp you already must be)
But Maudie is now decamping
To her lovely hot-water B.


Written by Joyce herself and her cousin,Nicholas Phipps, for a review "Penny Plain" in 1951.

I suspect that Lucy V. is expecting pieces with a likely majority appeal -- and that means garden invitations. But what she may get from more widely read Sphericals is anybody's guess, of course, and well worth waiting for!

Ann, Thanks for finding the Joyce Grenfell piece. My own copy seems to be woefully misfiled and currently beyond recall. I recently found my Collected Betjeman among my wife's cookery books -- a result of having lent the house to friends, I like to think; but almost certainly an aberration all of my own increasingly addling brain's making.

“Come into the garden, Maud” -
Are you out of your minuscule mind?
“The black bat has flown”, “Spices wafted abroad” ...
Such drivel were better unsigned.
Those lines may have scored with a half-witted bawd,
But I’m not a girl of the kind
To dally with poets in gardens - dear Lord!
Do you think I am stupid or blind?

I know what you’re after, you’re all just the same;
You poets are lechers and ninnies.
Do I look like a girl who’d become easy game,
Or who hasn’t the faintest what sin is?
A lady to lead to your garden of shame
Like one of those poppets of Prinny’s?
So “No” is the answer, you’ve picked the wrong name -
Unless you’ve a couple of guineas.

(I only posted this so early so that I could allow myself to read the others. Highly entertaining, Martin and Douglas - and Joyce too, come to that.)

The judge might take the stickler's position that Maud can reply only to those portions of the work that are addressed to her. But she can presumably reply to apostrophe, and if she has that superpower, then it's probably OK to situate her in an imaginary realm where she has omniscient awareness of the whole poem.

Brian, "majority appeal" if ever there was! It would get my vote.

I doubt if I'll send this one in, but I couldn't resist it. (Anything to avoid getting on with my work.)

Tennyson

Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, Night, has flown,
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone;
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
And the musk of the roses blown.

For a breeze of morning moves,
And the planet of Love is on high,
Beginning to faint in the light that she loves
On a bed of daffodil sky,
To faint in the light of the sun she loves,
To faint in his light, and to die.

Maud (who is slightly hard of hearing)

How dare you, Sir, refer to her,
xxMy mother, Mrs Knight,
As “black bat” - Eek! What frightful cheek!
xxAnd now you want a light
To smoke your Woodbine by the gate -
xxNo wonder you’re alone;
Tobacco breath I really hate,
xxSo fester on your own.

My sister Rose lives virtuously,
xxAs everybody knows,
And yet, it seems, you’re telling me
xxYou’ve just been blown by Rose.
Well, take your Woodbine, burning still,
xxAnd shove it, poet mine,
Beneath a sky of daffodil,
xxWhere sunlight doesn't shine.

P.S. Help! Can someone please tell me why lines can't be indented on this site?

Brian,

Lines can be indented on this site! You just have to know how to do it.
It's easy-peasy. Any space that you want to appear as 'white' i.e. blanked out, you just substitute with a row of, let's say, 'xxxxxx's. Then you highlight them (the 'x's, that is) and change the colour to 'white'. (Hit the big 'A' icon, which indicates colour.)

It's harder to explain than it is to do! Try it --- it really is simple. (It's got to be, because even I can do it! :rolleyes:)

Jayne

Ah Brian, that made me laugh but you'll have to hope Tessa is not a chit of a thing or she won't know what a Woodbine is. Similarly, Betjeman's 'a packet of Weights' probably needs annotating now. Makes me come over all sad.

What do you mean, get on with work? THIS is work.

Yeah, it's simple, but unbelievably clunky. Why can't I just type blanks as I would anywhere else on the Internet? Must have been designed by Bill Gates ...

Go with the flow, Brian. And here's mine. Perhaps I use this stanza, pinched from the great Bill Schwenk, a bit too often.

Answering Back

You sit there for hours conversing with flowers,
Poetically chewing the fat
You fall on your knees just to chatter to trees,
But does every poet do that?

Though you look okey-doke in your hat and your cloak,
With your shoulder-length hair and your beard,
It's the way you behave, a botanical raver,
That makes you so fearfully weird.

You may think it appealing to share what you're feeling
With tulips and daisies and dahlias,
But with every session you give the impression
That humans are basically failures.

Come into the garden to answer your ardent
Entreaty? I'm sorry, I won't do,
If only because there's a fellow indoors
Who knows how to do what you don't do.

Maudlin
 

I've always liked this answer:

Alley Cat Love Song

Dana Gioia

Come into the garden, Fred,
For the neighborhood tabby is gone.
Come into the garden, Fred.
I have nothing but my flea collar on,
And the scent of catnip has gone to my head.
I'll wait by the screen door till dawn.

The fireflies court in the sweetgum tree.
The nightjar calls from the pine,
And she seems to say in her rhapsody,
"Oh, mustard-brown Fred, be mine!"
The full moon lights my whiskers afire,
And the fur goes erect on my spine.

I hear the frogs in the muddy lake
Croaking from shore to shore.
They've one swift season to soothe their ache.
In autumn they sing no more.
So ignore me now, and you'll hear my meow
As I scratch all night at the door.

I thought I’d slip into the garden, my bard,
From a casement window high,
Shinny down the large pine and then swing from a vine,
While I warbled your favorite cry.

But my scanty chemise has got lost in the trees,
And I sit on this branch like a loon;
Now the planet of love isn’t all that’s above,
Shining forth like the perishing moon.

Since the least wayward glance from those leaving the dance
Would be certain to ruin my standing,
I should give you a call to come fetch me a shawl
And prevent my good name from crash-landing.

But speaking of tags, mine will soon be in rags,
And I can’t shout out yours, to come save it,
For I now realize—Oh, damn both of your eyes—
Neither you nor Lord Alfred once gave it!

Frank

Happy New Year!

I composed my entry before Christmas, revamping it just now. I checked up on Woodbine cigarettes (1888-1988) which places their origin just within Lord Tennyson's lifetime (1809-1892), though well after publication of his Maud poem (1855). But who cares?

***

Oh, Tennyson! Do go away;
You’re awful, posing posh,
To creep up at the break of day
And spout such utter bosh.

For days you’ve acted batty - your
Wits are what must have flown!
It’s driving me quite scatty, for
I want to be alone.

Go figure! Uninvited to
Last night’s ‘do’, at my place?
So! (Take away your Woodbines, too -
Don’t puff smoke in my face!)

You’re what I would call stalking me,
With all your flowers and guff!
I’ve come into the porch, just – see?
Be off! - that’s far enough.

***

Woodbines, eh?
 

So, Woodbine was an English cigarette ... That makes the Brian's and Graham's posts a lot more enjoyable!

Woodbine where I live live is a tough vine, generally a weed, and hardly burns with a pleasant aroma. But, America does have Pall Mall, Parliament, and Chesterfield cigarettes, which all sound terribly British.

Thanks, Douglas! I enjoyed all of the poems posted above
(and I've had another go myself at Maud's reply)-

Sir - bats, I must inform you, are not wholly black (nor blind) -
And not solely nocturnal. Among other facts, you’ll find
Those plants have sound botanic names I greatly would prefer
(Their species, plus variety) when you to them refer.
You’re hoping to impress me - with feigned knowledge of the sky?
That’s Mercury, not Venus! Your Astronomy’s awry.
As I’m a lady who elates at Truth told, above all,
That’s why you had no invitation last night to my Ball –
Your language is romantic, without scientific zeal;
Your accuracy’s wanting and such slackness lacks appeal.
Yet now, dew-damp and dewy-eyed, you turn up at my door
Requesting that I join you for dawn rambling on the moor?
‘The garden’, you say? ‘Lead me up the garden path’, more like –
No mere stroll would suffice for you; you’d lure me on a hike!
And I promised you nothing, Sir! (I - at the most - implied.)
Wet outdoors? Uninviting, Sir! So… won’t you come inside?

Knocks my effort into a cocked hat, I think. Dashed good verse, Graham.

I learned about Woodbines from Adrian Mole. What I could never figure out was the connection between Craven A cigarettes and the classic song, "Craven A never heard of fornication."

Dear me, Gail. I don't think we can go into that here. Very rude. I don't see the connection either for what it's worth.Ah, an Oxford education!