Speccie Competition Eastertide
Competition: Eastertide
LUCY VICKERYSATURDAY, 14TH APRIL 2012
In Competition No. 2742 you were invited to take as your first line ‘Dear Lord the day of eggs is here...’, which is the opening to Amanda McKittrick Ros’s poem ‘Eastertide’, and continue, in a similarly bad vein, for up to 16 lines.
Described in the Oxford Companion to Irish Literature as ‘uniquely dreadful’, McKittrick Ros, who died in 1939, nonetheless boasted devotees among the literary elite. Aldous Huxley wrote an essay on her extraordinary use of language, highlights of which include ‘globes of glare’ (eyes), ‘bony supports’ (legs) and ‘southern necessary’ (pants). Congratulations, all round. It was a magnificent entry and there are too many honourable mentions to list individually. The winners get £25. Noel Petty nets £30.
Dear Lord, the day of eggs is here,
An end to winter’s bitter drear,
When children don their springtime things
And roll their paschal offerings,
The daffodils leap from the mead
And lambkins gambol without heed.
And see! a newcomer appears:
The Easter bunny wags his ears.
We must not, though, too lightly say
That Easter is for holiday.
We know, dear Lord, that Eastertide
For You once had its sadder side,
But often, if one keeps good cheer
Things aren’t so bad as they appear,
And lo! just when You were most stressed,
Everything turned out for the best.
Noel Petty
Dear Lord, the day of eggs is here at last,
Refulgent outcome of a sombre past,
Of histories transgressed by woeful war,
Of internecine incidents galore.
Whose knuckles brandished at Gethsemane
The sword of treason or in Germany
Provoked a costive, schismatising friar
To spurn the Church and dub the Pope a liar?
Was it the doubly horned Antagonist,
To whose dark mills dissension is such grist?
Alas, when true believers fight they sin
And this is where the holy eggs come in,
Whose yolk and albumen emulsify
The disputation vile that makes me sigh.
We value their transcendence, as we should,
And e’en the chocolate ones are rather good.
Basil Ransome-Davies
Dear Lord, the day of eggs is here.
How festive shines Thy vacant bier.
Death’s great stone egg is rolled away;
Renewed life hatches forth today.
Most men are slaves to sinful habits,
Like rotten, carnal, thieving rabbits,
Much to Thy righteous consternation,
Yet still Thou serv’st up sweet salvation.
With many a flavourful confection
We celebrate Thy Resurrection.
We fete Thee, Lord, with cakes and ale,
If such Thy blessing might entail,
And if it be Thy will divine,
With viands rare and vintage fine.
Gorge us with Thee, Thy servant begs;
Be Thou our feast of Easter eggs.
Chris O’Carroll
Dear Lord, the day of eggs is here,
We roar hosanna and amen,
The yolk of Christendom grows clear
As its surrounding albumen.
For Jesus stands uncoffined now,
No longer quite so cruciform,
Our kids raise an affirming ‘Wow!’
Devouring life in chocolate form.
Cute as a chick, your plot is hatched
Death doesn’t get the final say,
Your son, on Calvary dispatched
Is up again this Easter Day!
Dear Lord, you did it all for us
The sin free few, the rest sinful
To show we know you’re marvellous
We’ll gobble eggs until brimful.
Adrian Fry
Dear Lord, the day of eggs is here.
They abide in huge amounts.
We vouch that eggs may not have legs,
But what they stand for counts.
They stand for brightness in the gloom —
To wit, for life-renewal
And Jesus rising from the tomb,
All glowing like a jewel.
The embryo of peace and love
Resides inside an ova,
And when it hatches heaven above
Bursts out like a supernova.
With eggs devoted souls can make,
While lambs in pastures gambol,
A sacerdotal simnel cake
Or a godly scramble.
G.M. Davis
Dear Lord, the day of eggs is here —
Their sunny symbol, yellow yolk,
Exclaimer of new life, to cheer
The hard-pressed hearts of humble folk.
How potent is the lowly egg:
Life cupped within its fragile shell.
Its baldly modest dome will beg
Our kindness cradling it as well.
Even, dear Lord, in chocolate,
Encased in glitt’ring golden paper,
Glad’ning the breakfast board, in state,
For which enchanting children caper.
Joy bursts the shells’ encasing crust,
And Easter’s seed is spread abroad,
Bounty of blessed birds unhusked,
Carolled and choired and hymned and roared
D.A. Prince
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