[Martin Parker]

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

[Brian Allgar]

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?

[Jayne Osborn]

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! )

Jayne

[John Whitworth]

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.

[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by Jayne Osborn

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! )

Jayne

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 ...

[John Whitworth]

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.

[RCL]

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.

[FOsen]

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

[Graham King]

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.

***

[Douglas G. Brown]

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.