The Poem What I Wrote (when I should have been doing Greek)

IF(with apologies to R.K.)

If you can spring from bed when every neighbour
Thinks Morning Prayer's a crazy thing to do,
If liturgy's a herculean labour,
Yet still you treat the Canticle as new,
If you can don and doff surplice or cassock
Or do without liturgical disguise,
And sit on chair, then stand, then kneel on hassock
With look most beatific in your eyes:
If you can bellow hymn then in your best sot-
-to voce breathe prayer only God may hear;
Raise hands at Ridley, thurible at Westcott,
With tact and grace and always most sincere;
If you can bear to hear both pop and chanting
And follow either path to praise your Lord,
Or hear the preacher wiffling or ranting
And never once betray that you are bored:
If you can mine the gold that's in the scriptures
And never merely bend them to your will,
And turn your hard work into felt-tip pictures
For nine year olds who never can sit still;
If you can study dusty books by Germans
When others to the pub have long adjourned,
And, knowing none of it will help your sermons,
Yet be resolved to keep what you have learned;
If you can talk to drunkards, dons and dustmen,
To students who weren't born when you left school,
And turn to each a patient ear and just, when
You'll come across as one more Holy Fool,
If two hard years of work leave you believing
The word of life's good news for Everyman,
You'll have deserved the honour you're receiving,
And -- which is more -- you'll be an Anglican.

Jeremy P