Here among long-discarded cassocks,
Damp stools, and half-split open hassocks,
Here where the vicar never looksI nibble through old service books.
Lean and alone I spend my
Behind this Church of England baize.
I share my dark forgotten
With two oil-lamps and half a broom.
The cleaner never bothers me,
So here I eat my frugal tea.
My bread is sawdust mixed with straw;
My jam is polish for the floor.
Christmas and Easter may be
For congregations and for priests,
And so may Whitsun.
All the same,
They do not fill my meagre frame.
For me the only feast at
Is Autumn's Harvest Festival,
When I can satisfy my
With ears of corn around the font.
I climb the eagle's brazen
To burrow through a loaf of bread.
I scramble up the pulpit
And gnaw the marrows hanging there.
It is enjoyable to
These items ere they go to waste,
But how annoying when one
That other mice with pagan
Come into church my food to
Who have no proper business there.
Two field mice who have no
To be baptized, invade the choir.
A large and most unfriendly
Comes in to see what we are at.
He says he thinks there is no
And yet he comes… it's rather odd.
This year he stole a sheaf of wheat(It screened our special preacher's seat),
And prosperous mice from fields
Come in to hear our organ play,
And under cover of its
Ate through the altar's sheaf of oats.
A Low Church mouse, who thinks that
Am too papistical, and High,
Yet somehow doesn't think it
To munch through Harvest Evensong,
While I, who starve the whole year through,
Must share my food with rodents
Except at this time of the
Not once inside the church appear.
Within the human world I
Such goings-on could not be so,
For human beings only
What their religion tells them to.
They read the Bible every
And always, night and morning, pray,
And just like me, the good church mouse,
Worship each week in God's own house,
But all the same it's strange to
How very full the church can
With people I don't see at
Except at Harvest Festival.
