[Jayne Osborn]

See the update on John over on The Speccie Homo sapiens thread.

The new comp looks like a good 'un, but that means Lucy will probably have a huge postbag, which isn't quite so good. Oh well, good luck everyone. Over to you...

NO. 2711 MARRIAGE GUIDANCE
To keep your marriage brimming,/ With love in the loving cup,/ Whenever you’re wrong admit it;/ Whenever you’re right shut up.’ So says Ogden Nash. You are invited to cook up a recipe for marital bliss on behalf of a poet of your choice (16 lines maximum). Please email entries, if possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 24 August.

[FOsen]

[ROBERT FROST]

Some marriages combust and end in fire,
Some others ossify and end in ice,
But either way, that path is full of briar,
So heed this old New Englander's advice:

To skirt the road whose ending-place is dire,
Just let your spouse control the thermostat.
You ought keep promises, don't be a liar,
But more important, more than all of that,

Relinquish and avoid the one device
Which causes frigid rifts and burning ire
Involving each mate's comfort and its price.
Swear that for love you'll shiver or perspire,

Grin like an oven-bird; that should suffice.
Don’t be disconsolate, all won’t be lost.
Employ, on snowy evenings, what proved nice
and worked for me—a little touch of Frost.

-- Frank

[Gregory Dowling]

Frank, that's superb! It doesn't sound like a Pasadena poem, mind you...

[R. S. Gwynn]

[Thomas Hardy]

Ah, they are young and gay
While twirl the dancers on their wedding day;
Amid their bower
Time paces lightly through his easiest hour--
As do they.

Ah, see the children play
Their games ‘round golden mows of garnered hay;
Each late-sprung flower
Proclaims the mildest strain of summer’s power--
As do they.

Ah, they grow gaunt and grey
Yet think not of themselves as ready prey;
Tho’ darkness lower,
Life shies not from the drear autumnal shower--
Nor do they.

[R. S. Gwynn]

Wonderful, Frank.

[FOsen]

Wow, Sam -- back atcha.

[R. S. Gwynn]

[Edwin Arlington Robinson]

Ethan and Edna, neither saying much,
Came to be married. There was no “I do”;
They merely nodded when the rite was through
Without a kiss or clasp or cleaving clutch.
No guest there reckoned what to make of such
Restraint ‘twixt lovers, and, to tell it true,
They left in silence, and no children threw
Rice in their hair, a fitting final touch.

But they lived happily, as if they meant
To prove the best thoughts are the ones unheard
And the most treasured coins are never spent
And the best batter sets when barely stirred.
They died the same day, with no argument
Of who had got to say the final word.

[Donna English]

Basho


Small splash on the water.
From the cast line, come ripples.
The angler’s boat rocks.

[George Simmers]

Kipling

If you can keep your wife when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If when you come home late she doesn’t clout you
Though lipstick smears confirm you’ve been untrue;
If all of England’s twigged you for a seedy’un,
But she, sweet sunny thing, will never moan;
Then either her IQ’s far less than median,
Or else she has some secrets of her own.

If you’re out dating ladies sweet and juicy
Her silence may not mean that she is dumb;
A gander can be sauced just like a goosie,
And she may soon elope with your best chum.
When it happens will you give a rueful chuckle,
Or will you reach out blindly for the gin?
When the lawyers bring her terms, if you don’t buckle,
You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

[FOsen]

Oh, that's a winner, George.

Frank