Against Sappy Hymns of Unsound Theology

Awake from your slumber!
Arise from your sleep!
The homily's over!
It wasn't too deep!
-On Mediocre Liturgy


Dies Irae
"Who says that poets can't be prophetic? I found these alternative verses of the Dies Irae in an old hymnal. They're obviously intended for Roman Catholics offered the Gather and Worship II hymnals and songs like "On Eagles' Wings" (Fr. Jan Michael Joncas), but from what I've heard of the suffering of my Protestant brethren, I think their appeal can be truly ecumenical."
-Anthony Esolen

Day of wrath, O day of mourning!
Earth to ashes now returning!
Gather, by the millions burning!
Cleansed at last by cataclysm
Butchered rhyme and battered rhythm,
Neo-pagan narcissism!
On that day, Lord, when Thou comest,
And our dreadful hymnals thumbest,
Smite the ugliest and dumbest.
Smite them, Lord, yet of Thy pity
Take their songsters to Thy city:
Even Haugen, Haas, and Schutte.
Spare them on the stern condition
That they feel a true contrition
For the Worship III edition.
Doom them not to loss and ruin
While the darker storm is brewing!
They knew not what they were doing.
On that day when Palestrina
Dare not touch a Celestina,
What will Sister Ballerina?
With thine eyes that pierce like lances
Still her silly heathen dances
And her flirting with Saint Francis.
Purge us of the prim and prissy,
Ditties fit for Meg or Missy,
Not for Francis, but a sissy.
Cantors who thought nothing grander
Than a sheaf of propaganda
Writ like office memoranda,
Raise them to Thy room to bide in
Where their hearts and ears may widen
To the strains of Bach and Haydn.
Let their hearts within them falter,
Hearing, as they near Thine altar,
Seraphs sing the Scottish Psalter.
Seize those devils set to pen a
Hymnal neutered of its men-ah.
Fling 'em back to black Gehenna!
Fling them one and all to mangle
Their pronominals, and wrangle
Lest a participle dangle!
Who held manhood in derision.
Preaching double circumcision.
Suffer now their own revision.
Though the songs of Hell are naughty.
None by Handel or Scarlatti,
At the least they'll have castrati.
Pitch, O Lord, the bald and raucous
Slogans of a leftist caucus
Down to Sheol, or Secaucus!
Save their singers, though: restore 'em
To a silent sweet decorum,
Per saecula saeculorum.
Various are the throngs of heaven:
Some were lump, and some were leaven.
Some as lame as six and seven.
When the demons hear thy curses.
And this world's dense fog disperses.
Heal the hobbled - not their verses.
Hush me, too, Lord, when I grumble:
In Thy mercy make me humble.
Lest On Turkey's Wings I tumble.
Though Haugen sing "Hosea" evermore.
Save me I pray - but keep me near the door.
Amen.

A Church Musician's Lament