A poem to be getting on with

I'm fairly busy right now what with job applications, selling a house and attempting murder on my teenage son, but while all that's going on here at The Laboratory of Doom behind the scenes, here's a poem below the fold, by Philip Larkin:

Philip Larkin - Church Going

Once I am sure there's nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting, seats, and stone,
And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut
For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence.

Move forward, run my hand around the font.
From where I stand, the roof looks almost new -
Cleaned, or restored? Someone would know: I don't.
Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few
Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce
'Here endeth' much more loudly than I'd meant.
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,
Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,
When churches will fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

Or, after dark, will dubious women come
To make their children touch a particular stone;
Pick simples for a cancer; or on some
Advised night see walking a dead one?
Power of some sort will go on
In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;
But superstition, like belief, must die,
And what remains when disbelief has gone?
Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,

A shape less recognisable each week,
A purpose more obscure. I wonder who
Will be the last, the very last, to seek
This place for what it was; one of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?
Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique,
Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff
Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?
Or will he be my representative,

Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation - marriage, and birth,
And death, and thoughts of these - for which was built
This special shell? For, though I've no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,
It pleases me to stand in silence here;

A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognized, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.

I too go into churches when I travel.

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One would have to be the most embittered of atheists not to appreciate the architecture and sense of history embodied by some of the old churches (especially the stone ones). The honour roles going back to WWI or even earlier, the carved wood lectern, the big pipe organ, the stained glass windows (some bearing dedications from families with multiple generations now buried in the church yard).

By Steve Watson (not verified) on 24 Oct 2006 #permalink

Vegemite crackdown

NEW YORK, Oct 23 (Reuters Life!) - Reports that U.S. customs agents are searching people from Australia and New Zealand for Vegemite, a popular yeast extract spread, has created consternation among antipodean expatriates living in America.
...

I presume this has something to do with the "war on terror."

By Mustafa Mond, FCD (not verified) on 24 Oct 2006 #permalink

Cathedral
Words and music by Graham Nash

...
I'm flying in Winchester cathedral.
All religion has to have its day
Expressions on the face of the Saviour
Made me say
I can't stay.

Open up the gates of the church and let me out of here!
Too many people have lied in the name of Christ
For anyone to heed the call.
So many people have died in the name of Christ
That I can't believe it all.
...

By Mustafa Mond, FCD (not verified) on 24 Oct 2006 #permalink

Mustafa Mond, FCD wrote:

NEW YORK, Oct 23 (Reuters Life!) - Reports that U.S. customs agents are searching people from Australia and New Zealand for Vegemite, a popular yeast extract spread, has created consternation among antipodean expatriates living in America.

I presume this has something to do with the "war on terror."

As if they could do much damage with Vegemite!

Marmite, now, you could do some serious damage...

Posted by: | October 24, 2006 03:07 PM

By Ian H Spedding FCD (not verified) on 24 Oct 2006 #permalink

Vegemite is a useful ward against drop bears. You put it on your scalp, and just behind the ears. Hence, the Republican Party is the secret enabler of drop bear predation...

Now I'll have to google "drop bears."

By Mustafa Mond, FCD (not verified) on 26 Oct 2006 #permalink