The Bishop (John Betjeman)

All the village street is humming.

What's the news? The bishop's coming.

All the Mothers' Union say

They'll be baking cakes today.

The bishop will be asked to try

Mrs Brewer's apple pie.

The bishop will be asked to taste

Mrs Stewer's almond paste.

The bishop will be given part

Of Mrs Gurney's cherry tart.

The bishop will, without a question,

Leave with violent indigestion.

In the vicarage the news

Means a raking out of flues

And a polishing of shoes

And a brandishing of brooms

And a turning out of rooms

And a putting on of kettles

And a burnishing of metals.

Such a dusting, such a mending,

You would think the world was ending.

After half an hour of smoking

Which had left the vicar choking,

At last the drawing room fire is burning

And it's time we should be turning

To his wife and daughter seated

All things ready and completed.

The vicar's little daughter Florence! –

Questions pour from her in torrents

Which her agitated mother

Cannot really check or smother

Save by giving information

Even in this situation.

Thus she waits the bishop's coming,

Nervously her fingers drumming.

And to relieve this strained delaying

I'll record what they are saying,

And to make it clear and neater

Use another style and metre.

'Pray, what is a bishop?' says dear little Floss

To her mother, 'Oh tell me, please do.'

'A bishop, my dear, wears a pectoral cross

And is much more important than you.'

'And pray, why is that?' says this sweet little thing

With her passionate love of research.

'Because,' says her mother, 'he's made by the king,

Or the queen, a great lord in the Church.

'And if you will look at the coin of our realm

Near the name of the monarch it saith

Fid. Def. or F.D., which is Latin, you see,

And means the Defender of Faith.

Our bishops by bishops are always ordained.

They lay hands on their heads. And the track

Of these consecrations, our Church has maintained

To the twelve first apostles goes back.

But remember, dear Florence, that under the skin

They are men (the apostles were too)

With the usual dose of original sin

And the grace to withstand it, like you.'

'And if they are ordinary people, Mamma,

Then can they do just as they like?

Is that why the bishop drives round in a car

While Daddy rides round on a bike?'

'Your father has only to visit the sick

And call on parochial electors,

While the bishop must go in motor-car quick

To admonish recalcitrant rectors.

Then dash up to Parliament, speak in debates

And sit in Church House on committees,

For erecting new churches on building estates

By selling old churches in cities.

There are other things too that a bishop must do

Which seem more important to me,

Such as being the friend and the father in God

To the clergymen here in his see.

In the church of the Celts, which is old, very old,

And brought Christ to the West before Rome

Send Augustine to Kent, they used, we are told,

To keep all their bishops at home.

And ordaining new priests and confirming the youth

Is really what bishops are for –

To ordain and confirm and, to tell you the truth,

I am sorry they're made to do more.

So soon, when you see our dear bishop processing

In mitre and cope down the lane,

Remember the hand which he raises in blessing

Has also the power to ordain.'

'Oh! thank you very much, Mamma,

How very well informed you are,

I wonder if you now could tell ....'

'Thank goodness, Florence, there's the bell.

The bishop's waiting at the door.

So do smooth out your pinafore,

And don't ask questions any more.'

The Blessed Virgin compared to the Air we Breathe (Gerard Manley Hopkins)

Wild air, world-mothering air,
Nestling me everywhere,
That each eyelash or hair
Girdles; goes home betwixt
The fleeciest, frailest-flixed
Snowflake; that's fairly mixed
With, riddles, and is rife
In every least thing's life;
This needful, never spent,
And nursing element;
My more than meat and drink,
My meal at every wink;
This air, which, by life's law,
My lung must draw and draw
Now but to breathe its praise,
Minds me in many ways
Of her who not only
Gave God's infinity
Dwindled to infancy
Welcome in womb and breast,
Birth, milk, and all the rest
But mothers each new grace
That does now reach our race—
Mary Immaculate,
Merely a woman, yet
Whose presence, power is
Great as no goddess's
Was deemèd, dreamèd; who
This one work has to do—
Let all God's glory through,
God's glory which would go
Through her and from her flow
Off, and no way but so.

  I say that we are wound
With mercy round and round
As if with air: the same
Is Mary, more by name.
She, wild web, wondrous robe,
Mantles the guilty globe,
Since God has let dispense
Her prayers his providence:
Nay, more than almoner,
The sweet alms' self is her
And men are meant to share
Her life as life does air.
  If I have understood,
She holds high motherhood
Towards all our ghostly good
And plays in grace her part
About man's beating heart,
Laying, like air's fine flood,
The deathdance in his blood;
Yet no part but what will
Be Christ our Saviour still.
Of her flesh he took flesh:
He does take fresh and fresh,
Though much the mystery how,
Not flesh but spirit now
And makes, O marvellous!
New Nazareths in us,
Where she shall yet conceive
Him, morning, noon, and eve;
New Bethlems, and he born
There, evening, noon, and morn—
Bethlem or Nazareth,
Men here may draw like breath
More Christ and baffle death;
Who, born so, comes to be
New self and nobler me
In each one and each one
More makes, when all is done,
Both God's and Mary's Son.
  Again, look overhead
How air is azurèd;
O how! nay do but stand
Where you can lift your hand
Skywards: rich, rich it laps
Round the four fingergaps.
Yet such a sapphire-shot,
Charged, steepèd sky will not
Stain light. Yea, mark you this:
It does no prejudice.
The glass-blue days are those
When every colour glows,
Each shape and shadow shows.
Blue be it: this blue heaven
The seven or seven times seven
Hued sunbeam will transmit
Perfect, not alter it.
Or if there does some soft,
On things aloof, aloft,
Bloom breathe, that one breath more
Earth is the fairer for.
Whereas did air not make
This bath of blue and slake
His fire, the sun would shake,
A blear and blinding ball
With blackness bound, and all
The thick stars round him roll
Flashing like flecks of coal,
Quartz-fret, or sparks of salt,
In grimy vasty vault.
  So God was god of old:
A mother came to mould
Those limbs like ours which are
What must make our daystar
Much dearer to mankind;
Whose glory bare would blind
Or less would win man's mind.
Through her we may see him
Made sweeter, not made dim,
And her hand leaves his light
Sifted to suit our sight.
  Be thou then, O thou dear
Mother, my atmosphere;
My happier world, wherein
To wend and meet no sin;
Above me, round me lie
Fronting my froward eye
With sweet and scarless sky;

Stir in my ears, speak there
Of God's love, O live air,
Of patience, penance, prayer:
World-mothering air, air wild,
Wound with thee, in thee isled,
Fold home, fast fold thy child.

Jerusalem the golden (J.M. Neale and Hymns Ancient and Modern)

Jerusalem the golden,

  With milk and honey blest,
Beneath thy contemplation

  Sink heart and voice opprest.
I know not, O I know not,

  What social joys are there,
What radiancy of glory,

  What light beyond compare.

They stand, those halls of Sion,

  Conjubilant with song,
And bright with many an angel,

  And all the martyr throng;
The Prince is ever in them,

   The daylight is serene,
The pastures of the blessed

  Are decked in glorious sheen.

There is the throne of David,

  And there, from care released,
The song of them that triumph,

  The shout of them that feast;
And they who, with their Leader,

  Have conquered in the fight,
For ever and for ever

  Are clad in robes of white.

O sweet and blessèd country,

  Shall I ever see thy face?
O sweet and blessèd country,

  Shall I ever win thy grace?
Exult, O dust and ashes!

  The Lord shall be thy part:
His only, his for ever,

  Thou shalt be, and thou art!

from De contemptu mundi (Bernard of Cluny)

Urbs Sion aurea, patria lactea, cive decora,

omne cor obruis, omnibus obstruis et cor et ora.
Nescio, nescio quae iubilatio, lux tibi qualis,
quam socialia gaudia, gloria quam specialis.
Laude studens ea tollere mens mea, victa fatiscit.
O bona gloria, vincor in omnia laus tua vicit.
Sunt Sion atria coniubilantia, martyre plena,
cive micantia, principe stantia, luce serena.
Sunt ibi pascua mitibus afflua praestita sanctis.
regis ibi thronus agminis et sonus est epulantis,
gens duce splendida, concio candida vestibus albis;
sunt sine fletibus in Sion aedibus, aedibus almis.

from Harrow the Ninth, Act One, chapter 10 (Tamsyn Muir)

Before Harrowhark could take this prompt to make a hasty exit, the necromancer of the Fifth said without transition: 'Are you interested in Lyctoral materials?'

This was an introduction, or a probe, or something different altogether.  Scrutiny into the Ninth's affairs might be deflected.  She was more intrigued by the idea of an introduction.

'If you are asking whether or not we have any within my House,' said Harrow slowly, 'I will not answer that question.'

'What a shame!  I understand,' said Pent, who did not appear to be discomfited by refusals, or by the sacramental paint.  'It was more to gauge your interest though.  This library is stuffed.  The books, now, the books are interesting - but the Lyctoral traces - phwoar.'

Abigail Pent had not seemed the type of woman to articulate phwoar.  She said it very boyishly.

Heaven (George Herbert)

O Who will show me those delights on high?
            Echo: I.
Thou Echo, thou art mortall, all men know.
            Echo: No.
Wert thou not born among the trees and leaves?
            Echo: Leaves.
And are there any leaves, that still abide?
            Echo: Bide.
What leaves are they? impart the matter wholly.
            Echo: Holy.
Are holy leaves the Echo then of blisse?
            Echo: Yes.
Then tell me, what is that supreme delight?
            Echo: Light.
Light to the minde: what shall the will enjoy?
            Echo: Joy.
But are there cares and businesse with the pleasure?
            Echo: Leisure.
Light, joy, and leisure; but shall they persever?
            Echo: Ever.

Vergissmeinnicht (Keith Douglas)

Three weeks gone and the combatants gone
returning over the nightmare ground
we found the place again, and found
the soldier sprawling in the sun.

The frowning barrel of his gun
overshadowing. As we came on
that day, he hit my tank with one
like the entry of a demon.

Look. Here in the gunpit spoil
the dishonoured picture of his girl
who has put: Steffi. Vergissmeinnicht
in a copybook gothic script.

We see him almost with content,
abased, and seeming to have paid
and mocked at by his own equipment
that’s hard and good when he’s decayed.

But she would weep to see today
how on his skin the swart flies move,
the dust upon the paper eye
and the burst stomach like a cave.

For here the lover and killer are mingled
who had one body and one heart.
And death who had the soldier singled
has done the lover mortal hurt.

A Sonnet (J.K. Stephen)

Two voices are there: one is of the deep;
It learns the storm-cloud's thunderous melody,
Now roars, now murmurs with the changing sea,
Now bird-like pipes, now closes soft in sleep:
And one is of an old half-witted sheep
Which bleats articulate monotony,
And indicates that two and one are three,
That grass is green, lakes damp, and mountains steep:
And, Wordsworth, both are thine: at certain times
Forth from the heart of thy melodious rhymes,
The form and pressure of high thoughts will burst:
At other times - good Lord! I'd rather be
Quite unacquainted with the ABC

Than write such hopeless rubbish as thy worst.

Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland (William Wordsworth)

Two Voices are there; one is of the Sea,
One of the Mountains; each a mighty Voice;
In both from age to age Thou didst rejoice,
They were thy chosen Music, Liberty!
There came a Tyrant, and with holy glee
Thou fought'st against Him; but hast vainly striven;
Thou from thy Alpine Holds at length art driven,
Where not a torrent murmurs heard by thee.
Of one deep bliss thine ear hath been bereft:
Then cleave, O cleave to that which still is left!
For, high-souled Maid, what sorrow would it be
That mountain Floods should thunder as before,
And Ocean bellow from his rocky shore,
And neither awful Voice be heard by thee!

The Motor Bus (A.D. Godley)

What is this that roareth thus?

Can it be a Motor Bus?
Yes, the smell and hideous hum
Indicat Motorem Bum!
Implet in the Corn and High
Terror me Motoris Bi:
Bo Motori clamitabo
Ne Motore caedar a Bo -
Dative be or Ablative
So thou only let us live: -
Whither shall thy victims flee?
Spare us, spare us, Motor Be!

Thus I sang; and still anigh
Came in hordes Motores Bi,
Et complebat omne forum
Copia Motorum Borum.
How shall wretches live like us
Cincti Bis Motoribus?
Domine, defende nos
Contra hos Motores Bos!

The Uncertainty of the Poet (Wendy Cope)

I am a poet.

I am very fond of bananas.

I am bananas.

I am very fond of a poet.

I am a poet of bananas.

I am very fond.

A fond poet of 'I am, I am' - 

Very bananas.

Fond of 'Am I bananas?

Am I?' - a very poet.

Bananas of a poet!

Am I fond? Am I very?

Poet bananas! I am.

I am fond of a 'very'.

I am of very fond bananas.

Am I a poet?

A Birl for Burns (Seamus Heaney)

From the start, Burns’ birl and rhythm,
That tongue the Ulster Scots brought wi’ them
And stick to still in County Antrim
Was in my ear.
From east of Bann it westered in
On the Derry air.

My neighbours toved and bummed and blowed,
They happed themselves until it thowed,
By slaps and stiles they thrawed and tholed
And snedded thrissles,
And when the rigs were braked and hoed
They’d wet their whistles.

Old men and women getting crabbèd
Would hark like dogs who’d seen a rabbit,
Then straighten, stare and have a stab at
Standard habbie:
Custom never staled their habit
O’ quotin’ Rabbie.

Leg-lifting, heartsome, lightsome Burns!
He overflowed the well-wrought urns
Like buttermilk from slurping churns,
Rich and unruly,
Or dancers flying, doing turns
At some wild hooley.

For Rabbie’s free and Rabbie’s big,
His stanza may be tight and trig
But once he sets the sail and rig
Away he goes
Like Tam-O-Shanter o’er the brig
Where no one follows.

And though his first tongue’s going, gone,
And word lists now get added on
And even words like stroan and thrawn
Have to be glossed,
In Burns’s rhymes they travel on
And won’t be lost.