The False Minister's Allegory Poem by Andrew Benton

Before my wise tale can hope to be heard
I wish to put forth describing word
concerning the nature of my friend’s sole,
and the many faults which swallowed him whole:
He was but the priest of a small farm town—
the sole settlement for miles around.
His church was white-washed and held no steeple,
held no décor, in fact, but its people,
who may in number have reached a few score—
(if not for fever they would have been more)
their stock was of honest, if simple, folk
I think, to a man, the whole town was broke.
Now of the pastor—his face was quite fair—
framed from the weather by locks of black hair,
which he kept slicked back in long, well-kept rows
falling like limp leaves around crooked nose.
His robes were of silk, his tastes were so fine
that no drink could cross his tongue but fine wine.
In taste and manner the pastor was high—
seemingly sent from the bounds of the sky;
No thoughts or actions seemed to make him tick
like alms for the poor or serving the sick.
In outward actions he was as a dove,
sent without reason from halls far above.
And yet in the inner realms of the mind,
my old pastor friend was not quite so kind;
caught between feelings of lust and of greed,
and losing sight of what Christ had decreed,
he turned hypocrisy into an art
and strove to hear: “My friend! How great thou art! ”
The promise of all of man’s fleeting praise
became his sole goal in each of his days,
such that it clouded the work of the Lord
and led to good works on its own accord.
To be true, he still spoke as saints above,
but now he wished only for mortal love.
Thus,
Once, on the return from a sermon talk,
a weird, old woman impeded his walk.
“Repent, ” she called in a strange, croaking voice—
“turn from your sins to the one holy Choice.
I know of your greed, of your lies and hate,
the acid-tipped tongue with which you tempt fate.
Twenty plus ten score are your noxious deeds,
even as your flock is consumed by needs.
Abstain now from deeds of worldly pleasure,
ere agents of sight are lost forever.”
her message given to those who would care,
the weird, old woman transformed into air;
the pastor stood silent before his door,
thinking alone as he’d never before.
(The woman was right, his heart was of stone—
from his own dog he denied even bone.)
After an hour, or less time, I think,
he shrugged it all off and went in for drink,
for though he preached everyday to the pine,
as I’ve said before, he loved to take wine.
On our night of fancy, his drink was strong—
it sent him to lands of dreams before long,
and forced him to flee from a savage man,
with hair left untamed and shoulders bronzed tan.
He chased the pastor for what seemed a year,
until my old friend stopped to shed a tear,
and found that he couldn’t—his eyes were gone—
left without mercy in land beyond dawn.
He woke up then, and blood began to race
when he saw nothing but black round his face.
And yet he soon laughed when he saw his lamp—
dark on account of the wick being damp.
His eyes being fine and mood being high,
my pastor friend resolved that day to try
to put the warnings of the crone behind,
and put on the mask of a pastor kind.
Out along the street he playfully set,
and yet, was nervous when others he met.
His task that day? To visit an elder—
In trade, I think, the man was a welder,
who’d made his living by combining fast
strong substance and poor, to metals which last;
he’d caught his arm in the torch in a fright—
only God’s grace would get him through the night.
The smell of warm death was in the ward’s air,
was landing on all castes without life’s care,
when through the wide doors the pastor did step,
seeking the man’s room with notable pep.
Intentions seemed just in the pastor’s mind
until in a flash the hall he did find,
and heard in the room beside his charge
a soft woman’s cry, a temptation large;
a harlot in pain was bed-ridden there,
with fresh-painted lips and golden blonde hair,
and though the pastor knew it was not right
his lust drew him onward to death, despite
the last breath of the elder in his bed—
man’s sin nature cared not if he were dead.
The pastor stepped thus to the harlot’s room
and sealed his own inevitable doom,
for as he came near adultery’s throne,
the harlot changed back into the old crone,
who, wrinkled with age, was content to laugh
at the pastor’s gaze, at his final gaff.
“I warned you, ” she cried, with tones come from hell,
“to use not desire your lusts to quell,
and yet you ignored me, as still you might—
this night you will forfeit your precious sight.”
This second speech done, the crone disappeared,
yet no real consequence the pastor feared.
Such thought was for farmers and peasant in field—
not for the clergy with God as its shield!
Finding the elder in deathbed deceased,
and still fearing naught in even the least,
the priest returned to his humble abode
in hope that a drink would lighten heart’s load.
He threw off his coat as he crossed the mat,
and tossed aside quickly his fleece-lined hat.
For only his wine his eyes looked around;
it’s really a shame they never looked down.
As he stooped down to the fireplace lit,
he tripped over the Book of Holy Writ—
(The Bible, it’s said, can give hope to all,
but to our poor friend it gave quite a fall.)
His eyes were burned then, in the white-hot ash,
black piercing iris and well-maintained lash;
the crone’s foretelling was finally true,
bought with piercing pain which evermore grew.
Consumed with repentance from head to toe,
my friend leapt from his house into the snow,
and swore to the Lord his life he would pay,
in spite of his sins before that dark day.
He became a monk and traveled around,
until God led him to this market town,
and though I am blind, I see you now know
the ending which my true story must show.
Go tell your friends you’ve heard from a man free—
I am the sinner—the pastor was me.