The Rector Poem by Patrick Dennis

Rows of boys turn up their eyes
on the good new rector who plans to regroup
the shattered morale of the huddled parade
of the young church militant upcoming brigade.

'Boys will not break bounds, boys will not smoke,
boys will not engage in surreptitious correspondence
with girls, boys will not be gentle
when here the cross of iron must rule.

'The gentle love of the risen Christ is true
and, true, too subtle for boys like you
for boys like you of a shattered morale.
I shall forge-cast you on a cross of iron
neat and square, lest a gentle touch appear
on the new cast flesh of the battered morale
the battered morale fresh molten down
from the shattered morale of this huddled parade
by an iron heel crush - the good with the bad -
the young church militant upcoming brigade.

'Christ died, it is true, for boys like you.
Christ cared, it is true, for boys like you.
He was gentle and kind, and if you met him today
perhaps his love he would give to boys like you;
but it's a love too subtle for boys like you
for boys like you with your shattered morale.

'As doctrine, it's true, you must surely adhere
to a saviour of love so meek and so mild;
but wisdom, you know, is the beginning of fear
and fear is the heel steel crush, you boys,
the heel steel crush that'll make you men
of the cross of iron - new hard men
for dollars and cents in the profit brigade
in the profit brigade of the steel-hard upcoming
new church brigade.'