Hey John Bunyan! Poem by Hannington Mumo

Historian, poet, and propagator of gospel divine;
There never lived a cleric with as sharp a devotion as thine.
A rhyme as tasty and a wit as quick as yours
No man has ever had beneath the azures!


Could anyone else from a tongue obnoxious
Convert to a honey-lipped ecclesiastic so audacious?
Methinks that yours was a celestial benefit to a vessel chosen;
Set aside before were put in place the pillars of the earth
By a grace so foremost that none of it remains
In these iniquitous days of virtue's dearth!

Tribute I pay you with this ill-qualified ink;
The unsure pen of an amateur composer
That might here and there show a bit of skill,
But in the ensuing line the same distort.

In this earthly stay let me salute for a little while;
In the never-ending paradisaical bliss I'll sure venture a smile!