Once more the mob is howling and half hidUnder the cupola of the dustbin lidMy child screams on: there is no obstacleSave Paul's edict and the seven bare hillsWhereby the television, and unrestBred in the church for centuries, can be stayedAnd for an hour I have walked and prayedBecause there is no room for my kind.
I have walked and prayed for this young child an hourAnd heard the sirens screaming by the hourUnder the arches of the bridge: and screamFrom the licentious streetsImagining in excited reverieThat the future years had comeDancing to a Babylonian drumFar from the traditional values of the See.
May he be granted holiness yet notHoliness to make his spouse distraughtFor some, being holy overmuchConsider sanctity sufficient end,Lose human kindness, and maybeThe heart-desiring intimacyThat chooses whether he should married be.
In ecumenism I'd have him chiefly learnedFaith is not had as a gift but faith is earnedBy those who are not entirely dutiful;Yet many that have played the celibateFor holiness' sake, have learned to compromiseFor many a poor cleric who has neverStrayed from his moral rictus has had to severFaith from duty, ecumenism must make him wise.
An intellectual failure is the worst,So let him think conservatives accursedHave I not seen the holiest man bornMiss the final blasting hornBecause of his evangelicus?Barter that freedom and every goodBy radical natures understoodAll for an aged man who's sanctimonious.
And may he belong to a churchWhere all is peace and fruitfulnessFor celibacy and chastity are the taresOf the human, not divine.How but in change and revolutionIs anything born?Ceremony's a name for the out of date,And Custom for the slow-changing See.
(with apologies to W. B. Yeats)
