Misalliance

The fragrant honeysuckle spirals clockwise to the sun
And many other creepers do the same
But some climb anti-clockwise, the bindweed does, for one

Or convolvulus, to give her proper name
Rooted on either side a door, one of each species grew
And raced towards the window-ledge above

Each corkscrewed to the lintel in the only way it knew
Where they stopped, touched tendrils, smiled, and fell in love
Said the right-handed honeysuckle to the left-handed bindweed

Oh, let us get married, if our parents don't mind
We'd be loving and inseparable, inextricably entwined
We'd live happily ever after, said the honeysuckle to the bindweed

To the honeysuckle's parents it came as a shock
The bindweeds, they cried, are inferior stock
They're uncultivated, of breeding bereft
We twine to the right and they twine to the left!"

Said the anti-clockwise bindweed to the clockwise honeysuckle
We'd better start saving many a mickle maks a muckle
Then run away for a honeymoon and hope that our luck'll

Take a turn for the better, said the bindweed to the honeysuckle
A bee who was passing remarked to them then
I've said it before and I'll say it again
Consider your offshoots, if offshoots there be

They'll never receive any blessing from me!
Poor little sucker, how will it learn
When it is climbing, which way to turn?
Right, left, what a disgrace
Or it may go straight up and fall flat on its face

Said the right-hand-thread honeysuckle to the left-hand-thread bindweed
"It seems that against us, all fate has combined
Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling Colombine

Thou art lost and gone forever, we shall never intertwine
Together, they found them, the very next day

They had pulled up their roots and just shrivelled away
Deprived of that freedom for which we must fight
To veer to the left or to veer to the right!