It is not the surplice that makes parson or clerk.
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When it pours upon the parson, it drops upon the clerk.
The Distracted Puritan
Am I mad, O noble Festus,
When zeal and godly knowledge
Have put me in hope
To deal with the Pope
As well as the best in the college?
Boldly I preach, I hate a cross, hate a surplice,
Mitres, copes, and rochets!
Come hear me pray nine times a day,
And fill your heads with crotchets.
In the house of pure Emanuel
I had my education,
Where my friends surmise
I dazel'd my eyes
With the sight of revelation.
Boldly I preach, I hate a cross, hate a surplice,
Mitres, copes, and rochets!
Come hear me pray nine times a day,
And fill your heads with crotchets.
They hound me like a bedlam,
They lash'd my four poor quarters.
Whilst this I endure,
Faith makes me sure
To be one of Foxes martyrs.
Boldly I preach, I hate a cross, hate a surplice,
Mitres, copes, and rochets!
Come hear me pray nine times a day,
And fill your heads with crotchets.
These injuries I suffer
Through antichrist's perswasion.
Take off this chain!
Neither Rome nor Spain
Can resist my strong invasion.
Boldly I preach, I hate a cross, hate a surplice,
Mitres, copes, and rochets!
Come hear me pray nine times a day,
And fill your heads with crotchets.
Of the beast's ten horns (God bless us!)
I have knock'd off three already;
If they let me alone
I'll leave him none;
But they say I am too heady.
Boldly I preach, I hate a cross, hate a surplice,
Mitres, copes, and rochets!
Come hear me pray nine times a day,
And fill your heads with crotchets.
When I sack'd the seven-hill'd city
I met the great red dragon;
I kept him aloof
With the armour of proof,
Though here I have never a rag on.
Boldly I preach, I hate a cross, hate a surplice,
Mitres, copes, and rochets!
Come hear me pray nine times a day,
And fill your heads with crotchets.
With a fiery sword and target,
There fought I with this monster;
But the sons of pride
My zeal deride,
And all my deeds misconster.
Boldly I preach, I hate a cross, hate a surplice,
Mitres, copes, and rochets!
Come hear me pray nine times a day,
And fill your heads with crotchets.
I un-hors'd the Whore of Babel
With the lance of Inspiration;
I made her stink,
And spill the drink,
In her cup of abomination.
Boldly I preach, I hate a cross, hate a surplice,
Mitres, copes, and rochets!
Come hear me pray nine times a day,
And fill your heads with crotchets.
I have seen two in a vision
With a flying book between them.
I have been in despair
Five times in a year,
And been cur'd by reading Greenham.
Boldly I preach, I hate a cross, hate a surplice,
Mitres, copes, and rochets!
Come hear me pray nine times a day,
And fill your heads with crotchets.
I observ'd in Perkins' tables
The black line of damnation;
Those crooked veins
So stuck in my brains,
That I fear'd my reprobation.
Boldly I preach, I hate a cross, hate a surplice,
Mitres, copes, and rochets!
Come hear me pray nine times a day,
And fill your heads with crotchets.
In the holy tongue of Canaan
I plac'd my chiefest pleasure,
Till I prick'd my foot
With an Hebrew root
That I bled beyond all measure.
Boldly I preach, I hate a cross, hate a surplice,
Mitres, copes, and rochets!
Come hear me pray nine times a day,
And fill your heads with crotchets.
I appear'd before the Archbishop
And all the high Commission;
I gave him no grace,
But told him to his face
That he favour'd superstition.
Boldly I preach, hate a cross, hate a surplice
Mitres, copes, and rochets!
Come hear me pray nine times a day,
And fill your heads with crotchets.
poem by Richard Corbet
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Lark ON the Clerk
Blushingly blotches the mark
over the spot.
Itchingly wrestles the clerk,
scratching a lot.
What a lark
is it not
in the dark
in his cot?
But the mark
on the clerk
all remark
comforts not...
Cheerfully carols the lark
Over the cot.
Merrily whistles the clerk
scratching a blot.
But the lark
And the clerk
I remark,
Comfort me not!
poem by Jonathan Robin
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A Dog of Few Words
A clerk said, 'Next in line - this way.'
A dog spoke up, 'I guess I am.'
'What can we do for you today? '
'I want to send a telegram.'
The clerk handed the dog a note.
'You'll have to write it out somehow.'
The dog took pen in teeth and wrote,
'Bow wow wow, bow wow wow, bow wow.'
The clerk read what the dog had penned.
'One to ten words have the same fees.'
'There's eight words now, so you can send'
'Another 'bow wow' if you please.'
'No, ' the dog said, 'Just between us, '
'One more would sound ridiculous.'
Intermix
Intermix the polishing of a forgotten summer,
The parson cools me after the furthest colour.
Furtive numerals are held in the mind when furthest,
Novelties of an oaf nurse on nothing.
Numerous designs matter on the shelf,
Gory oaths are honourable and gouging strength.
Let colours intermix and let the parson mix with us,
The length of numbers are called equations for us.
Gormandize the food once you steal,
The parson refuses to renovate your reality.
poem by Naveed Akram
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A Smuggler's Song
If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet,
Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street.
Them that ask no questions isn't told a lie.
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark --
Brandy for the Parson,
'Baccy for the Clerk;
Laces for a lady, letters for a spy,
And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
Running round the woodlump if you chance to find
Little barrels, roped and tarred, all full of brandy-wine,
Don't you shout to come and look, nor use 'em for your play.
Put the brishwood back again -- and they'll be gone next day!
If you see the stable-door setting open wide;
If you see a tired horse lying down inside;
If your mother mends a coat cut about and tore;
If the lining's wet and warm -- don't you ask no more!
If you meet King George's men, dressed in blue and red,
You be carefull what you say, and mindful what is said.
If they call you "pretty maid," and chuck you 'neath the chin,
Don't you tell where no one is, nor yet where no one's been!
Knocks and footsteps round the house -- whistles after dark --
You've no call for running out till the house-dogs bark.
Trusty's here, and Pincher's here, and see how dumb they lie --
They don't fret to follow when the Gentlemen go by!
If you do as you've been told, 'likely there's a chance,
You'll be given a dainty doll, all the way from France,
With a cap of Valenciennes, and a velvet hood --
A present from the Gentlemen, along o' being good!
Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark --
Brandy for the Parson,
'Baccy for the Clerk;
Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie --
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
poem by Rudyard Kipling
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Epigram - On Players And Ballad-Singers
They're like the Priest and Clerk at Belial's altar;
One makes the Sermon; t'other tunes the Psalter.
poem by Francis Quarles
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The devil makes his Christmas pies of lawyers' tongues and clerk's fingers.
There's many a knave concealed under a surplice.
On Observing Some Names Of Little Note Recorded In The Biographia Britannica
Oh fond attempt to give a deathless lot,
To names ignoble, born to be forgot!
In vain recorded in historic page,
They court the notice of a future age,
Those twinkling tiny lustres of the land
Drop one by one from fame's neglecting hand,
Lethean gulfs receive them as they fall,
And dark oblivion soon absorbs them all.
So when a child, as playful children use,
Has burnt to tinder a stale last year's news,
The flame extinct, he views the roving fire,
There goes my lady, and there goes the squire;
There goes the parson, oh! illustrious spark,
And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk.
poem by William Cowper
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Longer Boats
Longer boats are coming to win us
Theyre coming to win us, theyre coming to win us
Longer boats are coming to win us
Hold on to the shore, theyll be taking the key from the door.
I dont want no God on my lawn
Just a flower I can help along
cause the soul of no body knows
How a flower grows... oh how a flower grows.
Chorus
Mary dropped her pants by the sand
And let a parson come and take her hand
But the soul of no body knows
Where the parson goes, where does the parson go?
Chorus
song performed by by Cat Stevens
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Tinker Dick
Good Parson Dickson preached, I'm told,
A sermon-ah, 'twas very old
And very, very, bald!
'Twas all about-I know not what
It was about, nor what 'twas not.
'A Screw Loose' it was called.
Whatever, Parson Dick, you say,
The world will get each blessed day
Still more and more askew,
And fall apart at last. Great snakes!
What skillful tinker ever takes
His tongue to turn a screw?
poem by Ambrose Bierce
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You can't be what you don't see. I didn't think about being a doctor. I didn't even think about being a clerk in a store, I'd never seen a black clerk in a clothing store.
quote by Joycelyn Elders
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The pinafore of the child will be more than a match for the frock of the bishop and the surplice of the priest.
quote by James Martineau
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Viola Lee Blues
The judge decreed it, the clerk he wrote it.
Clerk he wrote it down indeed-e
Judge decreed it, clerk he wrote it down
Give you this jail sentence youll be nashville bound
Some got six month some got one solid.
Some got one solid year indeed-e
Some got six month some got one solid.
But me and my buddies all got lifetime here
I wrote a letter I mailed in the air, mailed it on the air indeed-e
I wrote a letter I mailed in the air.
You may know by that Ive got a friend somewhere
song performed by by Grateful Dead
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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There Is No God, the Wicked Sayeth
"There is no God," the wicked saith,
"And truly it's a blessing,
For what He might have done with us
It's better only guessing."
"There is no God," a youngster thinks,
"or really, if there may be,
He surely did not mean a man
Always to be a baby."
"There is no God, or if there is,"
The tradesman thinks, "'twere funny
If He should take it ill in me
To make a little money."
"Whether there be," the rich man says,
"It matters very little,
For I and mine, thank somebody,
Are not in want of victual."
Some others, also, to themselves,
Who scarce so much as doubt it,
Think there is none, when they are well,
And do not think about it.
But country folks who live beneath
The shadow of the steeple;
The parson and the parson's wife,
And mostly married people;
Youths green and happy in first love,
So thankful for illusion;
And men caught out in what the world
Calls guilt, in first confusion;
And almost everyone when age,
Disease, or sorrows strike him,
Inclines to think there is a God,
Or something very like Him.
poem by Arthur Hugh Clough
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Frying Pan's Theology
Shock-headed blackfellow,
Boy (on a pony).
Snowflakes are falling
Gentle and slow,
Youngster says, "Frying Pan
What makes it snow?"
Frying Pan, confident,
Makes the reply --
"Shake 'im big flour bag
Up in the sky!"
"What! when there's miles of it?
Surely that's brag.
Who is there strong enough
Shake such a bag?"
"What parson tellin' you,
Ole Mister Dodd,
Tell you in Sunday-School?
Big pfeller God!
"Him drive 'im bullock dray,
Then thunder go;
Him shake 'im flour bag --
Tumble down snow!"
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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Death of the 25$ HEB Coffee Cup Experiment
I have not investigated with Holmes like certainty
Why it is gone but it is no more.
The honor system box to recive my quarter has disappeared
and with it the supply of small styrofoam cups.
'You can purchase a medium or large coffee, ' the nice clerk
informs me.
I have refill privileges and take the medium.
Will the annonymous woman with the travel mug ever return
to discover her retribution?
Will the nice lady with the travel mug inquire of the nice clerk
which size is this - medium or large?
I do not know.
This is why I do not sell poetry but it is not free.
poem by Bill Grace
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