The Mystery Remains Story Poem Poem by ivor or ivor.e hogg

By my lanthorn dimly burning.
I have trouble in discerning
the faint words scrawled upon the page
By the hand of a long dead sage.

What I study is forbidden
a secret I must keep hidden.
I dare not study it by day
and that is why I hide away.

In the dark hours of the night.
I study by a lanthorns light.
Lest the priesthood should suspect.
For they would kill me to protect

from what they see as wizardry
although it’s only chemistry.
The shaveling priests of Mother Church
have full authority to search.

As and when and where they choose
.a power open to abuse
And they abuse it readily
in their search for men like me.

Men who defy authority,
pursue their studies secretly.
The church pretends to safeguard souls
but aims to keep in place controls.

Which keep the people ignorant
so that they will accept the cant.
The falsehoods and hypocrisy
of the priests more easily.

The common man must never know.
Because the church will have it so.
That education is the key
to knowledge which will set them free.

From religious domination.
To me a foul abomination.
The Holy Book from which they preach
written in a language will do not teach


To any but the favoured few
Who think the same way that they do.
Which will maintain the Status Quo
beneath the piety they show.

I am convinced that in due course
The population will enforce
the will of the majority
And strip them of authority.

Award all men the liberty
to study what they want to openly.
I know too well if I am caught
my labours will have been for naught

Though I must study secretly
I hide my records carefully.
Perhaps one day someone will find
the writings which I leave behind.

I was betrayed so I must die
but I will die with head held high.
Accused of practising magic
they’ll burn me as a heretic.

The papers I hid secretly
lie waiting for discovery.
By some scholar of a future time
When learning is not seen as crime.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

I found this manuscript by chance
and thought it worth a second glance.
My hobby is church history.
I can’t resist a mystery.

Although the parchment was fragile
and written in an archaic style.
Some parts of it I could translate
sufficient to appreciate..

This document deserved to be
translated more efficiently.
By someone who could understand
old manuscripts written by hand.

So I enlisted expert aid.
A scholar of the highest grade
from Oxford university
to solve the mystery for me.

It caught the scholar’s interest
and easily passed every test.
To prove it was no forgery.
Which was of little help to me.

Although the scholar could translate
there was no way that he could state.
The dead authors identity
which must remain a mystery.

A fact which disappointed me.
Alhough I gladly paid his fee.
I would much rather that I knew
who we could ascribe it to.

I must accept we’ll never know
who wrote these word so long ago.
Because he failed to sign his name.
He is denied his well earned fame.

His careful notes on alchemy
though hidden from his enemy.
Have formed the basis of research
which can’t be repressed by the church.

As it was in the distant past
before the people over cast
the dead hand of the Holy See
and achieved their liberty

15/04/2009
http: // blog.myspace.com/poeticpiers.

15/04/2009