Occasional Verse
In Competition No. 2431 you were invited to write a poem commemorating the recent death of the whale in the Thames.
Verse marking a special occasion can be serious (Tennyson’s ‘Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington’) or light (Gray’s ‘Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes’). I can only explain the fact that this was the smallest entry I have ever received by the supposition that many of you wrongly thought that I was asking for a funny poem on an unfunny subject. Perhaps it would have been easier to treat the subject with a straight face if it hadn’t been a bottle-nosed whale. Only four competitors managed to be prizeworthy. Printed below, they get £35 each, and the bonus fiver goes to G. McIlraith. Printed below them, I give you Horace Walpole’s ‘Epitaph on Two Piping Bullfinches of Lady Ossory’s, Buried under a Rose-Bush in her Garden’.
Occasional Sermons of A Colelction of Sermons and Tracts from author John Gill. Find more Christian classics for theology and Bible study at Bible study tools. Occasional definition is - of or relating to a particular occasion. How to use occasional in a sentence. Occasional definition, occurring or appearing at irregular or infrequent intervals; occurring now and then: an occasional headache.
It was in the chill January of two thousand and six
That the mighty Thames became the river StyxFor one northern bottle-nosed whale which got completely lostAnd instead of braving the Atlantic tempest-tossedIt swam through our capital city while vast crowds linedThe Embankment and the bridges and hoped it would findSomewhere to turn and swim back to sea,But such an outcome was sadly not to be.So brave rescue services, although it was so large,Captured it in a sling and put it on a bargeAnd the paparazzi and other media folkTook many pictures, but, alas, it was no joke,For the whale died; though the publicity it was able to gainFor its troubled species means it may not have died in vain.Perhaps it would have fared better swimming further north,Into the silvery Tay or even the Firth of Forth.Occasional Verse Definition
G. McIlraith‘Canst thou draw out Leviathan with an hook?’
As God demanded in that puzzling book.Today enlightened thought and special skillCombine to save such marvels, not to kill.All helpless, though, we watch a giant veerOn anguished course and aimless wild career:From bank to bank now feebler still it goes, In crazed gyrations and convulsive throes.Yet expertise and keen assistance triedTo launch that bulk on some propitious tide,Drawn by a fellow mammal’s plight to findThe strange affinity that links mankind.Have not whales sung, with almost human sound,To charm the awestruck mariners around?But efforts are in vain: the creature dies,To stir the heart and cloud a nation’s eyes.Godfrey BullardThis whale was cool,
A Cool Britannia whaleAnd nobody’s fool.In her tiny brainThis celebrity whaleWas out for gain.Westminster or die,Decided this whale,And a brilliant tryIt was — but she beached,This most hubristic whale,With the goal not reached.Like Pigmy Oaten, and Hammerhead Hughes,Like Bottle-nosed Charlie Kennedy,She gambled to win and lost it to lose —So ought not to merit a threnody.Define Occasional Verse In Literature
Richard Ellis’Twas on the 20th January, 2006, a Friday,
That a great whale made our river Thames its highway,Which is very exciting because such a bonny creatureIs not normally in the Thames a regular feature.While some said that its watery journey was an Act of God,Others averred it was lost from its group (which is called a pod)And that every northern bottle-nosed whale, when troubled and frantic,Swims west, which in this case was up the Thames, towards the Atlantic.Alas, the poor mammal was in great distress,Not knowing how on the Embankment the people did pressTo cheer it on, and the rescuers who were tryingTo save it from grounding at Battersea Bridge, and dying.Despite a mattress and antibiotics from a vet, The brave swimmer gave up its soul before the sun was set,And all round the world went the news of its last sad foray.We will all remember 21st of January, which was a Saturday.D.A. PrinceAll flesh is grass, and so are feathers too:
Finches must die, as well as I and you.Beneath a damask rose, in good old age,Here lies the tenant of a noble cage.For forty moons he charmed his lady’s earAnd piped obedient oft as she drew near,Though now stretched out upon a clay-cold bier.But when the last shrill flageolet shall sound,And raise all dickybirds from holy ground,His little corpse again its wings shall plume,And sing eternally the self-same tune,From everlasting night to everlasting noon.No. 2434: Trochaics
You are invited to write a poem in trochaics (the metre of Longfellow’s Hiawatha) entitled ‘Breakfast’. Maximum 16 lines. Entries to ‘Competition No. 2434’ by 9 March.