Written by
John Betjeman |
Here among long-discarded cassocks,
Damp stools, and half-split open hassocks,
Here where the vicar never looks
I nibble through old service books.
Lean and alone I spend my days
Behind this Church of England baize.
I share my dark forgotten room
With two oil-lamps and half a broom.
The cleaner never bothers me,
So here I eat my frugal tea.
My bread is sawdust mixed with straw;
My jam is polish for the floor.
Christmas and Easter may be feasts
For congregations and for priests,
And so may Whitsun. All the same,
They do not fill my meagre frame.
For me the only feast at all
Is Autumn's Harvest Festival,
When I can satisfy my want
With ears of corn around the font.
I climb the eagle's brazen head
To burrow through a loaf of bread.
I scramble up the pulpit stair
And gnaw the marrows hanging there.
It is enjoyable to taste
These items ere they go to waste,
But how annoying when one finds
That other mice with pagan minds
Come into church my food to share
Who have no proper business there.
Two field mice who have no desire
To be baptized, invade the choir.
A large and most unfriendly rat
Comes in to see what we are at.
He says he thinks there is no God
And yet he comes ... it's rather odd.
This year he stole a sheaf of wheat
(It screened our special preacher's seat),
And prosperous mice from fields away
Come in to hear our organ play,
And under cover of its notes
Ate through the altar's sheaf of oats.
A Low Church mouse, who thinks that I
Am too papistical, and High,
Yet somehow doesn't think it wrong
To munch through Harvest Evensong,
While I, who starve the whole year through,
Must share my food with rodents who
Except at this time of the year
Not once inside the church appear.
Within the human world I know
Such goings-on could not be so,
For human beings only do
What their religion tells them to.
They read the Bible every day
And always, night and morning, pray,
And just like me, the good church mouse,
Worship each week in God's own house,
But all the same it's strange to me
How very full the church can be
With people I don't see at all
Except at Harvest Festival.
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Written by
Spike Milligan |
Through every nook and every cranny
The wind blew in on poor old Granny
Around her knees, into each ear
(And up nose as well, I fear)
All through the night the wind grew worse
It nearly made the vicar curse
The top had fallen off the steeple
Just missing him (and other people)
It blew on man, it blew on beast
It blew on nun, it blew on priest
It blew the wig off Auntie Fanny-
But most of all, it blew on Granny!
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Written by
Jonathan Swift |
Desponding Phillis was endu'd
With ev'ry Talent of a Prude,
She trembled when a Man drew near;
Salute her, and she turn'd her Ear:
If o'er against her you were plac't
She durst not look above your Wa[i]st;
She'd rather take you to her Bed
Than let you see her dress her Head;
In Church you heard her thro' the Crowd
Repeat the Absolution loud;
In Church, secure behind her Fan
She durst behold that Monster, Man:
There practic'd how to place her Head,
And bit her Lips to make them red:
Or on the Matt devoutly kneeling
Would lift her Eyes up to the Ceeling,
And heave her Bosom unaware
For neighb'ring Beaux to see it bare.
At length a lucky Lover came,
And found Admittance to the Dame.
Suppose all Partys now agreed,
The Writings drawn, the Lawyer fee'd,
The Vicar and the Ring bespoke:
Guess how could such a Match be broke.
See then what Mortals place their Bliss in!
Next morn betimes the Bride was missing,
The Mother scream'd, the Father chid,
Where can this idle Wench be hid?
No news of Phil. The Bridegroom came,
And thought his Bride had sculk't for shame,
Because her Father us'd to say
The Girl had such a Bashfull way.
Now John the Butler must be sent
To learn the Road that Phillis went;
The Groom was wisht to saddle Crop,
For John must neither light nor stop;
But find her where so'er she fled,
And bring her back, alive or dead.
See here again the Dev'l to do;
For truly John was missing too:
The Horse and Pillion both were gone
Phillis, it seems, was fled with John.
Old Madam who went up to find
What Papers Phil had left behind,
A Letter on the Toylet sees
To my much honor'd Father; These:
('Tis always done, Romances tell us,
When Daughters run away with Fellows)
Fill'd with the choicest common-places,
By others us'd in the like Cases.
That, long ago a Fortune-teller
Exactly said what now befell her,
And in a Glass had made her see
A serving-Man of low Degree:
It was her Fate; must be forgiven;
For Marriages were made in Heaven:
His Pardon begg'd, but to be plain,
She'd do't if 'twere to do again.
Thank God, 'twas neither Shame nor Sin,
For John was come of honest Kin:
Love never thinks of Rich and Poor,
She'd beg with John from Door to Door:
Forgive her, if it be a Crime,
She'll never do't another Time,
She ne'r before in all her Life
Once disobey'd him, Maid nor Wife.
One Argument she summ'd up all in,
The Thing was done and past recalling:
And therefore hop'd she should recover
His Favor, when his Passion's over.
She valued not what others thought her;
And was--His most obedient Daughter.
Fair Maidens all attend the Muse
Who now the wandring Pair pursues:
Away they rose in homely Sort
Their Journy long, their Money Short;
The loving Couple well bemir'd,
The Horse and both the Riders tir'd:
Their Vittells bad, their Lodging worse,
Phil cry'd, and John began to curse;
Phil wish't, that she had strained a Limb
When first she ventur'd out with him.
John wish't, that he had broke a Leg
When first for her he quitted Peg.
But what Adventures more befell 'em
The Muse hath now no time to tell 'em.
How Jonny wheadled, threatned, fawnd,
Till Phillis all her Trinkets pawn'd:
How oft she broke her marriage Vows
In kindness to maintain her Spouse;
Till Swains unwholsome spoyled the Trade,
For now the Surgeon must be paid;
To whom those Perquisites are gone
In Christian Justice due to John.
When Food and Rayment now grew scarce
Fate put a Period to the Farce;
And with exact Poetic Justice:
For John is Landlord, Phillis Hostess;
They keep at Stains the old blue Boar,
Are Cat and Dog, and Rogue and Whore.
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Written by
Francesco Petrarch |
[Pg 26] SONNET XXIII. Il successor di Carlo, che la chioma. ON THE MOVEMENT OF THE EMPEROR AGAINST THE INFIDELS, AND THE RETURN OF THE POPE TO ROME. The high successor of our Charles,[P] whose hairThe crown of his great ancestor adorns,Already has ta'en arms, to bruise the hornsOf Babylon, and all her name who bear;Christ's holy vicar with the honour'd loadOf keys and cloak, returning to his home,Shall see Bologna and our noble Rome,If no ill fortune bar his further road.Best to your meek and high-born lamb belongsTo beat the fierce wolf down: so may it beWith all who loyalty and love deny.Console at length your waiting country's wrongs,And Rome's, who longs once more her spouse to see,And gird for Christ the good sword on thy thigh. Macgregor.
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Written by
Rg Gregory |
a cold bright sun
two days to christmas
a first-quarter moon
at a good vantage-point
a small white coffin
driven slowly uphill
from the cemetery gate
to the minimal grave
fifty people attending
unexpected collection
of nettle-stung hearts
at a barely-lived dying
a shuffling past yews
thoughts finding rhythm
a lightness that bred
from a silent aceptance
a red-arrowed plane
in single formation
scissored the sky's blue
above the procession
sagittarian arrow
a sizzling of fire
an unconscious dipping
of wings in salute
to a baby whose burning
from birth to departing
took thirteen fast days
from rain into sunshine
till almost the hilltop
the hole with its mound
a circle of people
shared its raw hollow
no vicar no service
a speaking of poems
cotoneaster sprigs
dropped into the grave
the red plane returned
cut its own circle
honoured the sunlight
and passed by the moon
from a treetop nearby
a sharp-singing blackbird
trilled its objective
gold-beaked lullay
the grave was filled in
the high hill deserted
and down in the valley
a rare christmas came
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Written by
Thomas Hardy |
He often would ask us
That, when he died,
After playing so many
To their last rest,
If out of us any
Should here abide,
And it would not task us,
We would with our lutes
Play over him
By his grave-brim
The psalm he liked best—
The one whose sense suits
"Mount Ephraim"—
And perhaps we should seem
To him, in Death's dream,
Like the seraphim.
As soon as I knew
That his spirit was gone
I thought this his due,
And spoke thereupon.
"I think", said the vicar,
"A read service quicker
Than viols out-of-doors
In these frosts and hoars.
That old-fashioned way
Requires a fine day,
And it seems to me
It had better not be."
Hence, that afternoon,
Though never knew he
That his wish could not be,
To get through it faster
They buried the master
Without any tune.
But 'twas said that, when
At the dead of next night
The vicar looked out,
There struck on his ken
Thronged roundabout,
Where the frost was graying
The headstoned grass,
A band all in white
Like the saints in church-glass,
Singing and playing
The ancient stave
By the choirmaster's grave.
Such the tenor man told
When he had grown old.
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