Water Canon

The canon sometimes gabbled and, instead of ‘Let us pray’,

He’d blurt out something similar but more like ‘lettuce spray’.

For spraying was his forte and one never stood too near

In case he spluttered ‘trespasses’ or ‘mercifully hear’.

Any word with ‘s’ or ‘c’ was sure to make folk cower

And both, as in ‘Episcopal’, produced a frightful shower.

To sit beneath the pulpit and look up towards the sky

Made sermons quite refreshing; they were never ever dry.

Psalm forty-two, his favourite psalm, to him was most profound,

It’s ‘waves and storms’ and ‘water-pipes’ left listeners all but drowned.

Psalm one-three-seven pleased him too! To watch him gabble on

Reminded one of rivers in the realms of Babylon.

His homilies on Jonah’s tale, as none will be surprised,

Resulted in one feeling as though one had been baptized!

To hear him preach on Moses was to positively drown

Alongside the Egyptians with the Red Sea crashing down;

But as he spoke so zealously with bright and sparkling eyes

It seems a little impolite to carp and criticize,

For canons do as canons must - drench all with words of note

By gabbling garbled phrases until no one’s left afloat.

No doubt the canon spat things out from when he was a boy

Perhaps that’s how he came to be the church’s fount of joy.