Paradise Lost Poem by Brian Taylor

The Right Reverend Dean
peddled his wares
under the Tree of Knowledge
in St Peter’s Graveyard
adjacent to his College,
setting his snares;

showing us to seek flowers in Herrick,
rather than in the tangled daisies and violets
that pushed up among the stone records
of lives long spent (or misspent):

justifying the Ways of God to Man
in Milton’s secondhand lines
rather than in the firsthand words of Christ.

For this he received a handsome stipend,
a seventeenth century set of rooms
with free board and lodging and a male servant
on Staircase Three
in the shade of a firsthand
ancient magnolia tree.

And a yearly stipend of handpicked students.

Forgive him Lord, he knew not what he did.

Could the Right Rev have been on the wrong road
after all?

After all? BEFORE all, says Gnome.
Forgive him NOT
that he knew not what he hid!