A Manchester chaplain

 THE REV. JOSHUA BROOKES 1754-1821

(to the tune 'Manchester' by Thomas Ravenscroft https://bit.ly/3AN0foh )

The writer stressed how like they were --
the antiquated pile
with weathered points and mouldering stones,
the chaplain in the aisle.

Obituary fondness for
the chaplain's gaffes and rage.
It seems the chaplain read the tale;
he marked the printed page.

The chaplain died within the year.
The church lived on to do
its work among the things that set
its city with the new.

This poem was my entry in Manchester Cathedral's 600th Anniversary Poetry Competition.  Before Manchester Cathedral was a cathedral, with a dean, it was a collegiate church with a chaplain, and the Rev. Joshua Brookes was of that line.  He was something of a character, the subject of what you might call a 'pre-obituary': a profile article entitled 'Brief sketch of the Rev. Josiah Streamlet' in Blackwood's magazine 8(48), 633-637, March 1821.  That's the starting point of this poem.

And it has now been sung in public!  By me, at an event to raise funds for rebuilding work at St Martin's church in Cambridge.  They let me sing several of my hymn tune retextings, and these benefited much from accompaniment by Mike Cole.

The tune 'Manchester', by the way, is also known as 'Ely'.  In time I will find out which came earlier.  But I felt its qualities well suited Joshua Brookes.  Synaesthetically, it made me see bushy eyebrows.