Wednesday, April 2, 2008

A Lenten Marching Song

The final stanza of Lewis Carroll's The Mad Gardener's Song:
He thought he saw an Argument
That proved he was the Pope:
He looked again, and found it was
A Bar of Mottled Soap.
"A fact so dread," he faintly said,
"Extinguishes all hope!"
I know exactly the feeling. As long as we're on Carroll, I can't help but reproduce a poem of his that should become something of a Lenten marching song, given the meager sort of fair we're expected to live on until Pascha:
Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Beau-ootiful Soo-oop!
Beau-ootiufl Soo-oop!
Soo-oop of the e-e-eving,
Beautiful, beautiful Soup!

Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish,
Game, or any other dish?
Who would not give all else for two
Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
Beau-ootiful Soo-op!
Beau-ootiful Soo-op!
So-oop of the e-e-evening,
Beautiful, beaut-FUL SOUP!
One gets the impression that Mr Carroll could have talked, nor not talked, about soup all day.

For those wanting more Lewis Carroll, see my post Humpty Dumpty and the Cappadocians (seriously).

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11 comments:

  1. Felix CulpaApril 2, 2008 at 8:47 PM

    P. S., I'm all for fasting. I'm also all for soup. But, as one bishop told me, God gave us teeth, and it would be a sin not to use them.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kevin P. EdgecombApril 3, 2008 at 5:50 AM

    Have a cheeseless pizza with tomato chunks, onion, broccoli, and tomato sauce. Very tooth-using, that.

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  3. Felix CulpaApril 3, 2008 at 11:55 AM

    Ugh. No temptation-leading allowed in comment boxes! I'm at the point of gnawing on my prayer-rope -- the most use it's gotten in ages.

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  4. Kevin P. EdgecombApril 3, 2008 at 10:58 PM

    Sorry! We're not limited to soup outside the walls. I didn't know you were!

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  5. Kevin P. EdgecombApril 4, 2008 at 12:51 AM

    By the way, in the Humpty Dumpty post, should that be "causal relation" instead of "casual relation"? Just a guess!

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  6. Felix CulpaApril 4, 2008 at 1:43 PM

    Kevin: Have you learned nothing?!

    When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.

    So there.

    And yes, we are not expected to live on soup alone. We also have tea.

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  7. Kevin P. EdgecombApril 4, 2008 at 8:38 PM

    Then someone might suggest you store your prayer rope in a cookie jar so that in gnawing on it you at least manage to obtain a few crumbs of solid (and tasty) food.

    But I didn't say that!

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  8. Felix CulpaApril 4, 2008 at 8:56 PM

    It's happened more often than I care to recall that I've kept both a banana and a prayer rope in my pocket at the same time. The result is something like a woolly smoothy.

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  9. Kevin P. EdgecombApril 5, 2008 at 6:02 AM

    Shocking! You are quite obviously all running rampant in that monastery. Tea in addition to soup! Bananas! Next you'll be telling us you are using some newfangled nineteenth century text for Orthros. Shocking!

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  10. AnonymousApril 5, 2008 at 4:52 PM

    Father Culpa, May I make another suggestion for your new blog? Could you find a way of including some sort of health warning for posts (or, more specifically, discussions) like this? I am now unable to reach for my prayer rope without wanting to laugh. And given that I normally do so when finding myself distracted during the Office this is becoming rather a problem!

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  11. Felix CulpaApril 5, 2008 at 7:33 PM

    It may be that posts and discussions will need to be rated M for "Monastic" or No-No-M for those that are not.

    ReplyDelete