Chillstead Harvest Festival
At the Chillstead Harvest Festival the choir and deacons all
Marched and sang thanksgiving all round the churchyard wall.
First there came the alter boys, cherubic cheeked and bright,
Their voices an enchantment, their cassocks vestal white.
Then there came the ladies, sopranos warbling shrill,
High in faith and bosom and in fashion higher still.
Among them Chloe Graffton, not the tallest among her peers
Though her paten shoes where high-heeled, adding inches, subtracting
years.
Chloe's comely calves admiring, among the tenors close behind
Came Fred Fortisque, a warden with scarce a thought of church
in mind.
And behind the carolling choristers, last but holiest of the
line
Came the Reverend Carson Cuttforth, his every thought on the
Divine.
And true each heart sang its loudest in the golden autumn sun.
All thoughts were turned to heaven, all thoughts perhaps but
one.
For the eye of Fredrick Fortisque, while his voice sang loud
of thanks,
The eye of Fredrick Fortisque was on Chloe's shapely shanks.
Then like a serpent into Eden came a grating into our scene,
Trod upon by Chloe, her heel its bars trapped fast between.
Wishing not to cause a falter in the procession's solemn pace
She swiftly unshod one trotter and limping gamely kept her place.
And behind the admiration of our Fredrick greater grew
For this lady who'd be so gallant to so gamely cast a shoe.
But he feared then for the slipper, such dainty footwear put
at risk,
Trampled to a tune of glory. To the rescue he was brisk.
But as he stopped to lift it he found it wouldn't rise,
Though the effort cost him the sweetest notes of "The Words
of the Lord are Wise."
Whereupon with an agility quite amazing for his shape
He dipped and gripped the grating, leaving the drain hole wide
agape.
And lo! The sun shone brightly on the marching harvest fest.
And lo! The beneficence of the Lord in song was manifest.
And lo! Likewise in the blossoms and fruit and vege all mixed.
But low never looked the vicar, his gaze on heaven fixed.
The fall of the Reverend Cuttforth was a shock to all the train,
His expletive up to heaven, his right foot down the drain.
He cast his arms about him, he cast his hymnal wide.
His parishioners turned to offer aid at their stricken vicar's
side.
But within a second of the vicar's cry two more cries rang
their woes.
Hit by the hymnal Fredrick dropped the grating on Chloe's toes.
On the work of a country pastor, the Lord above must smile.
Looking down on Chillstead's Harvest Fest, He surely laughed
a while.
Denis Ahern.
