Mr. Eliot's Sunday Morning Service

by T.S. Eliot

       Look, look, master, here comes two religious
       caterpillars.
                     The Jew of Malta.
     Polyphiloprogenitive
     The sapient sutlers of the Lord
     Drift across the window-panes.
     In the beginning was the Word.

     In the beginning was the Word.
     Superfetation of [Greek text inserted here],
     And at the mensual turn of time
     Produced enervate Origen.

     A painter of the Umbrian school
     Designed upon a gesso ground
     The nimbus 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.
    .    .    .    .    .
     The sable presbyters approach
     The avenue of penitence;
     The young are red and pustular
     Clutching piaculative pence.

     Under the penitential gates
     Sustained by staring Seraphim
     Where the souls of the devout
     Burn invisible and dim.

     Along the garden-wall the bees
     With hairy bellies pass between
     The staminate and pistilate,
     Blest office of the epicene.

     Sweeney shifts from ham to ham
     Stirring the water in his bath.
     The masters of the subtle schools
     Are controversial, polymath.