[Spindleshanks]

Hi Martin.

This is seasonable and sure to appeal to the believers (count me in).

I see some logic problems in the octave's order of progress. As it stands, "this chain" follows the eagle's nest and would appear to include it among the human indiscretions. Can I suggest reversing the def. article and the pronoun "this" as so:

. . . . An eagle’s nest,
a mansion on a lofty bough, is blest
with two young growing chicks. In time the chain
of indiscretions by the human brain
will put half of this biosphere to rest.

I have trouble identifying the fledglings with humans. Where is the connection? What am I missing?
You have a tautology with "young chicks." "Growing" might pass as rhetorical, but I doubt you will get away with "young."
I wonder, too, about "mansion," which seems a tad overdone.

Best with this,

Peter

[Spindleshanks]

John, "unfazed and resolutely undepressed" seems totally denied by the battering at the brain on. Or is the opening line just good old British understatement, a stiff upper lip? If so, it would be more effective as irony, I think, if the bulldog countenance is held longer and the tremble introduced further in. Difficult given the rhyme restraint, but it would be more telling in my view.

Best,
Peter

[John Whitworth]

Yes it's stiff upper lip, which I rather support as a way of going on. I'm totally against all this reveal your feminine side stuff or indeed reveal anything much to all and sundry, a bleeding motley to the view as Bill so trenchantly has it. I think you may be right as to tactics, but the rhyme scheme makes it difficult. I shall give it my rich attention however. Thanks for that.

She keeps his every sock and undie pressed?

Thanks Bill. Bloody masterly.

[Spindleshanks]

Would that pass? It's better than my option. Worth a try, isn't it? Or are you setting me up for a fail??

Mine:
She presses his socks and undies; undepressed,
she waters her agopanthus in the rain;

[John Whitworth]

No, I don't think you would get away with it.

[Gail White]

What's a gwyniad, please?

[John Whitworth]

A gwyniad is a welsh fish of the salmon family. Heavens, I thought everybody knew that. Nasty thing to step on while going downstairs, I tell you.

[Donna English]

You held me down, but I am undepressed;
a bright umbrella shaking off your rain,
the penicillin to your vicious strain
of pestilence that putrefied our nest.

And since I left, my life’s been wholly blest;
a rosary round my neck and not your chain.
I paid my debt and now I own my brain,
and you have been evicted with the rest

of who I used to be. It is a blast
to know your fumes no longer make me wilt.
I'm celebrating ever since the day
I found out I was pretty, smart, and built.
Men often look at me when I walk past,
and I am looking for a better lay.

[Roger Slater]

THE COLD

It's hard to be completely undepressed
when sun is all you want but there is rain.
I sneeze so hard I cannot take the strain.
Crumpled tissues strewn throughout my nest,
I am alone. My sneezes are unblest.
I sneeze again. Again. Again. A chain
of violent sneezing rattles through my brain.
It's Sunday but it's not my day of rest.

I sneeze again and stagger from the blast.
God bless me? God, I'm hoping that thou wilt
not make me wait until the Judgment Day
to see my nasal passages rebuilt.
If thou wouldst bless me, God, then do it fast.
Another sneeze would smite me. Don't delay!

*
Original sestet before Susan's comment (below)

I sneeze again and stagger from the blast.
God bless me? Well, I wonder when God wilt.
I cannot wait until his Judgment Day,
when everything unbuilt will be rebuilt.
I need relief, and God, I need it fast.
I'll sneeze my head right off should God delay!

original L4:
Will someone tell me where the sunbirds nest?

[Susan McLean]

Donna and Roger, the thing that makes bouts-rimés most effective is if you can manage to have fewer endstopped lines, so that the rhymes seem more natural and less the point of the exercise. A couple of grammatical points: Donna, "lay" is the past tense of "lie," so it doesn't quite work with present tense verbs in your last line. Try making them past tense. Roger, "wilt" goes with the second person "thou" but not with the third person "God."

Susan