The Milk Of Human Kindness (Poetry)

A woman with a babe in arms
came to their church for Evensong
sat at the back — a row apart
a stranger to the tight-knit throng.

The pious prayed, the old hymns sung
the babe awoke with hungry cry
and fastened on its mother’s breast
offending each stout-christian eye.

The portly spinster vicar flew
with an avenging angel’s speed
along the aisle to stop the show
immediately evict mid-feed

these desecrators of God’s house
who dare embarrass righteous folk
condemning such immodesty
they stared as though about to choke.

And thus they drove the woman out
the action mean in heart and mind
so quick to judge they all forgot
the words to live by — “Be Ye Kind”.*



*King James Bible: Ephesians Chapter 4, verse 32