The Ballad of Spurgeon’s Cottage
When Charles Spurgeon was sixteen, in eighteen fifty one,
his mentor Mr. Vinter tempted him to Teversham.
A young man would be preaching there who wasn't used to speeches,
and company might help preserve his dry unsoiled breeches.
As Charles and his colleague walked along Newmarket Road,
he found to his surprise that his companion had been told
that he would be the one providing comfort—and for whom?
For Mr. Spurgeon's maiden sermon in a cottage room.
Charles prayed for help and managed to deliver an address
to reach the poor uneducated farmers. His success
gave him the fortitude to disregard the women who
responded to his speech, "Bless your dear heart, how old are you?"
Before he got much older, he was preaching on his own
to above ten thousand people (that's without a microphone).
Once, someone shouted "Fire!" while he pounded out his creed.
In the ensuing panic, several died in a stampede.
This saddened him, but still he struggled boldly to undo
the heresies of Darwin, though it split his church in two.
At last this Prince of Preachers found a piece of heaven's peace:
he died a martyr's death at a hotel just outside Nice.
His sermons still are read today, in countries far and wide.
A plaque was mounted on the cottage, where I now reside.
Dog-walkers pause to read the plaque (their dogs of course pause too),
and when they go they leave behind a steaming pile of poo.
I sigh and think if Charles had been incontinent back then,
it might have spared me now from scooping shit into my bin.
And if this poem were famous, part of high school English lore,
it only would increase the pong of poo outside my door.
