In 2018 the church I attend, St John the Evangelist, Princes Street, Edinburgh, is enjoying its 200th anniversary. I am using my satirical column in the church magazine, "Cornerstone", to celebrate the fact in verse. I hope this will be the first canto of half a dozen.
"What is the matter with telling the truth with a smile?" Desiderius Eramus to Martin Dorp, 1515 (Dorp had been complaining that the "Praise of Folly" was too frivolous)
Think
1818. George III was king
And
Europe was awash with creativity.
“Heart
of Midlothian” was Scott’s new thing;
The
Marx couple celebrated Karl’s nativity;
Gruber
wrote “Stille Nacht for us to sing.
The list o'erwhelms a heart of sensitivity.
The list o'erwhelms a heart of sensitivity.
It's far too long! In fact it might be speedier
To look
the whole lot up in Wikipedia.
And,
don’t forget, this year did Mary Shelley
Conceive
her famous Doctor Frankenstein.
(I say
“conceive”. He was not in her belly,
Rather
her fecund fantasy divine.)
I guess the Shelley household was
a melée
Of quill, ink, paper – all the
author’s line.
And this, in fact, was rather handy
as
Her Percy Bysshe was writing
“Ozymandias”.
But what about the Athens of the
North,
Then slithering from off its
lofty perch,
Street by new street towards the
Firth of Forth?
The old crown jewels were found
after a search
(That
Scott again) and many a man of worth
Thought
the New Town should have another church.
So, just
as Byron started on “Don Juan”
Why,
Daniel Sandford thought he’d build a new one.
These
lines may make a nest for some church mice,
Or act
on my friend Dorp like an emetic,
But
“Cornerstone” is free, so there’s no price;
I trust
my readers to be sympathetic.
A
bicentenary doesn’t happen twice
So it
seems right to pen some sort of epic.
And
what could better suit a bold romancer
Than write his verse in a Byronic stanza?
