Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HERE IS MUSIC: LIP-SERVICE, by AUSTIN PHILIPS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HERE IS MUSIC: LIP-SERVICE, by                    
First Line: In shocked surprise
Last Line: At peace, long since, with god.
Subject(s): Churches; Clergy; Mouths; Protestantism; Sermons; Speech; Cathedrals; Priests; Rabbis; Ministers; Bishops; Oratory; Orators


IN shocked surprise—
Nay, more, in rude dispraise—
Fain to chastise
Another's fault, you raise
Impudent eyebrows; arrogant, protest
It crime I keep not Saint's Day, Minor Feast,
Refuse to wear (your well-drilled devotee!)
Fly-blown phylactery.

Impertinent lout!
Learn that, four decades past,
In stern pursuit
Of duty, once I cast
Cathedral Tenor into gaol for theft
Of poor men's savings infamously reft
Under post-magisterial aegis, swept
In trusted grasp ... and kept.

Even as I strove,
One summer afternoon,
Steadfast to probe,
Prepare my case, to prune
Evidence into seemly size, fair shape,
Ensure that he who stole should not escape
Rich retribution, all-unlooked-for came
One of repute, wide fame.

His card proclaimed
His calling, pow'r and place.
His garb enframed
A noble figure. Grace
Of speech was his, while strength and gentleness
Mixed with, and joined themselves in, just distress.
Bishop he was, foredoomed to further state,
High, arch-episcopate.

From youngling me,
Self-conscious, came excuse,
As absentee
From unattended dues. ...
"Sir," I began, "I fear I did not come
To Sunday Service, rather stayed at home,
Striving, 'gainst time, to probe, prove, represent
Years-old embezzlement."

My caller's smile
Showed gracious, while his words,
Sweet and flexile,
Came like some clavicord's
Clear note. "Of course! I understand. That day
You did your duty in another way. ...
Now, tell me. Can you find the time for bite
And sup with us one night?"

Such, then, the speech
Of one too large of mind
To pout and preach,
Who asked but to be kind. ...
Spiritual lord of mountains, marches, dales,
First Primate of the pleasant land of Wales,
Priest, scholar, gentleman—to whom I yet
Feel I owe unpaid debt.

For whom no praise
Could be too great, since he
Walked guileless ways
In high humility,
Fulfilled his task, talked to his fellow-man
As fellow-sinner; though Diocesan,
Held him as brother-prisoner beneath
One self-same sentence. ... Death.

Who, walking thus,
And talking such-wise, went
Spontaneous,
Simple and confident,
In truest dignity throughout his days,
One man to millionaires and castaways,
Then knew his hour, took leave ... to meet, in tryst,
His King and Captain, Christ.

But you, you lout—
Impertinent young priest,
Bully and tout,
Whose deeds attest
Sex-urge and egoism, bared, expressed and blent
In all-unending self-advertisement—
Style yourself "Father", stand, stripped of disguise,
Father, in truth ... of Lies!

But you, who give
Lip-service, false in heart,
And do but live
Repetitive of part,
Actor in all things, quick in cozenage,
Shallow in soul and stinking of the stage,
Hunting for wealthy wife, with subtle pace
Haunting Life's market-place.

But you, in whom
Scholarship, race, lurk not,
And Love lacks room;
Infamous gallipot,
Painted and glazed exterior, all facade
And empty shell, spiritual renegade,
You and your like exist but to e-nerve
The Church which you disserve.

But you would drive
From out her hapless ken
True hearts that strive
And faint not ... fighting men,
Self-sacrificial women, spew your slime
Upon the Eternal Verities, be-grime
God's Image, come to cover with black Night
All Progress and all Light.

But you, who exist
To fog the spinster mind,
Base sciolist,
Would batten on the blind,
Unthinking middle-class that, slavish, stand
Beside that poor, half-educated band
Of idle-rich, careful to keep them fools
That they make better tools.

Shall such as you
Dare to decree, decide
What false, what true
For thinking men, o'er-ride
Judgment, experience, instinct, written word,
Taint Christ's pure teachings with your own absurd
Interpretations, bid the Letter be
More than the Spirit to me?

Perish the thought!
Reflect—if such as you
May yet be brought
To simple, true
Reflection for a slender space—that, up
And down a wrung and writhen world, the Cup
Of Grief goes round, that men and women die
Glad, tortured, gloriously.

Die for their Faith—
Be it by bath of Blood
That they with Death
Find Brotherhood,
Be it with face upturned on stricken field,
Be it with body cruelly congealed
And ice-bound, be it by starvation's hand—
Un-numbered, strown like sand.

Rapine and Rape
Run riot. Meantime you,
Swift to escape
Reality, renew
Your store of spiritual drugs and, each fresh day,
Adorn your vain, contemptible self to play
With well-warmed belly, but with frozen heart,
Your leading-actor's part.

In East and West
Saints daily, hourly, die
Val'rous and blest,
For Freedom, crucify
Themselves for sake of those to come, make end
Gallant past telling, do deeds which transcend
All deeds ere done, all tasks we find, read, see
In Hagiology.

But "Saints" we name
Them not one minute. They
Would know sharp shame
To learn Stage Play,
Dumb Crambo, cheap charade, mute mime were made
Of their devotion, dreamed it were displayed
By posturing priest, that spinsters pale and chill
Have fresh emotional thrill.

All they would ask
Were this ... that such as you
Assume more honest task,
Worth while to do,
Join the Church Militant, not fraudulent.
Flit through that Church which men call "fugient",
Take up real work—to labour is to pray,
And Doomsday dawns each day!

Yet since, in veins
Sub-human, not red blood
But lesser liquid reigns,
And manlihood
Seems wholly wanting, generous impulse fled,
Keep words to calm and drug the spiritually-dead,
Sad fugitives from Life whom your black soul
Aches to subdue, control.

And henceforth spare
Him who, high on Life's Hill,
Seeks yet to fare
Forward, who still
Strives, though with failing strength, to add his blow
To stronger, better men's 'gainst Europe's foe—
Him who, grown ripe to die, awaits Death's nod,
At peace, long since, with God.





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