Rev Eli Jenkins' Prayer - Dylan Thomas (from Under Milk Wood)
Every morning when I wake,
Dear Lord, a little prayer I make,
O please do keep Thy lovely eye
On all poor creatures born to die
And every evening at sun-down
I ask a blessing on the town,
For whether we last the night or no
I'm sure is always touch-and-go.
We are not wholly bad or good
Who live our lives under Milk Wood,
And Thou, I know, wilt be the first
To see our best side, not our worst.
O let us see another day!
Bless us all this night, I pray,
And to the sun we all will bow
And say, good-bye - but just for now!*
*We hope!!!!
If you are able to read this post then the Rev Jenkins prayer will have been answered and the evil scientists will have been defeated.
If not - then blogging might be light as me and my computer are turned into goo and sucked into a black hole!
Thanks to the Reverend, for his well chosen words,
ReplyDeleteOf love for mankind, beast and birds.
But I'm sure that the Lord, our every Provider.
Knows what he's doing with the hadron collider.
It was His wish that man builded the tunnel,
Along which He chooses the particles to funnel.
To bring about our beginning or end,
If it's the latter, Heaven forfend.
My confidence in the Good Lord's judgement,
Is expressed by these words, made minus fudgement.
But, if the particles awkwardly splatter,
It'll be God's work, we'll be homogenous matter.
We have no need to ponder or panic,
After all, the Lord also made the Titanic.
Just another part of that eternal mystery,
So sadly confined to maritime history.
So sleep well, my babes, safe in your truckles,
Let's hope that the Lord's not engaging in chuckles,
To bring about an absolute Unity.
When I'm part of you, and you're part of me.
Before we all are turned to goo;
ReplyDeleteI'd like to say - JR - THank You!
The "lord" didn`t make the titanic,
ReplyDeleteIt was heft by Irish hand,
Creationism is but a myth,
A silly bunch of fables,
That really take the pith.
Oh dear, here's another can of worms.
ReplyDeleteA. Theist doesn't seem to like my terms,
Of reference to that Almighty power,
That determines our every waking hour.
Named as God and Allah too,
Even called the Great Manitou.
But these are names just given by Man,
To name The Power that no-one can.
Called Mother Nature e'en by many,
I daresay some will call it Kenny.
It matters not to we meagre creatures.
But needs a name for the use of preachers.
There's more to Titanic than Irish toil.
When the materials came from Earthly soil.
Just another source of wonder,
As around this Globe we adventurously blunder.
And so, my dear A. Theist,
I hope that my words haven't off you pissed.
Science and theology both play a part.
In Life's Great Mystery and our small part.
Not defeated - they're only just beginning, after doing the innocuous parts first.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry chaps, but it's not science or religion that is going to ruin this world, it's the bloody non-drinkers! By the way is it Ok to join this blog if you're English?
ReplyDeleteDiolch I Dduw ein bod ni yma o hyd
ReplyDeleteYn mwynhau y pethau gorau o'r byd
Rygbi a chanu; a cwrw a curry
A merched au broniau fel bryniau Eryri.
Hwyl Gyfaill
... ond mae'n rhaid i ti cael gwared a'r "apostrophe" yna yn y gair "poems"!
ReplyDeleteOf course, but if the Rev Jenkins had not like Dylan Thomas, put it into English, we would have all been impoverished. So please " see our best side not our worst " I did have an Aunty Ruby in Newport ( Mon I'm afraid ) so I'm not beyond redemption am I ? The only other plea I can offer in mitigation ,is that my wife says I am a boring old fart, as far as I am aware she has not said "Miserable" - yet !
DeleteHad Dylan Thomas not put in English we would have all been impoverished. I would never have heard of the Reverend Eli Jenkins or been able to read with his prayer, which Alwyn has kindly posted in English. Sadly I cannot comment on Pedr ap Gwilym or indeed Barcud's observations on the correct use of the apostrophe, all I can say in mitigation of my appalling lack of knowledge of Welsh is that I had an aunty Ruby in Newport ( Mon I'm afraid ) and she considered the English to be " erring brothers " and in keeping with the rev Jenkins, looked to our best side not our worst.
DeleteHas been commented elsewhere - the Titanic was built by professionals (Irish or not ), and the Ark by an amateur !
ReplyDeleteI just love Dylan Thomas' sense of humour !
ReplyDeleteAll Gods are Bastards.
ReplyDeleteAnd all of their prophets are Shits.
Every Man Jack’s a necrophiliac
Infested with maggots and nits.
Gods Love to Destroy and wreak Vengeance,
Dealing Pain with a flick of a wrist,
And what is more, every Son of a Whore
Doesn’t even Exist.
We invent and then fear these shadows
Like children afraid in the dark.
But we roast any wight who turns on the light
Or even who shows us a spark.
We cower in terror of Nothing,
And nothing we get for our Pains.
For the Heaven that we crave is a box in a grave.
Nothing where Nothingness reigns.
The silence of Death is no stranger.
We hear it each night in our bed,
And remember our Birth and the first smell of earth
When we wake up well slept and well fed.
In those sweet times both sides of Oblivion,
In spite of our nearness to ‘Him’
We don’t give a Damn for The Lamb or Immam
While the shadow of Fear stays dim.
It is then that we truly fear nothing
And Nothing fears us, by degrees.
But the day comes and then the cruel world again
Drives us down on to our knees.
It seems Death is fine ( for a visit )
And we’d give it a miss -given the chance.
But under the loam, the retirement home
‘Dunlivin’ is booked in advance.
While we frantically plan for our post-life:
‘All those things that we never could share.’
We all know that our fate is not God’s Estate
But a stain in a graveyard somewhere.
Our powerlessness in this contract
Festers Ultimate Grievance , with age.
So we yearn for a Being - Allmighty, All-Seeing.
ENTER: ‘God’ - (PUFF OF SMOKE) - Centre stage.
And show after show he screeches
One line from the Stalls to the Flies:
‘Just you tell Man his life’s a short span.
And to put bums on pews - or he dies !’
Grant us only the moderate frenzy
To say what we feel with each breath.
We ask little more, no eternal encore:
One full life scares the Hell out of Death.
In his coffin lies the athiest
Deleteall dressed up and nowhere to go
Science is a system of argument and proof
ReplyDeleteuntil the best answer is clear and the rest we can hoof
For our planet and future we need method not dog-Ma!
God is love. God is hate but only Science is prog., Ma!
It's a hard graft all that experiment and proving
But it's rational process that keeps us all moving!