Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service

Look, look, master, here comes two religious caterpillars.

THE JEW OF MALTA.¹

 

 

Polyphiloprogenitive²

The sapient sutlers³ of the Lord

Drift across the window-panes.

In the beginning was the Word.

 

In the beginning was the Word.

Superfetation⁴ of τò eν, ⁵

And at the mensual⁶ turn of time

Produced enervate Origen.⁷

 

A painter of the Umbrian school⁸

Designed upon a gesso ground⁹

The nimbus¹⁰ of the Baptized God.

The wilderness is cracked and browned

 

But through the water pale and thin

Still shine the unoffending feet

And there above the painter set

The Father and the Paraclete.¹¹

The sable presbyters¹² approach

The avenue of penitence;

The young are red and pustular

Clutching piaculative pence.¹³

 

Under the penitential gates

Sustained by staring Seraphlm¹⁴

Where the souls of the devout

Burn invisible and dim.

Along the garden-wall the bees

With hairy bellies pass between

The staminate and pistillate,¹⁵

Blest office of the epicene.¹⁶

 

Sweeney shifts from ham to ham

Stirring the water in his bath.

The masters of the subtle schools

Are controversial, polymath.¹⁷