Mirth?

[Achebe]

There are issues with the core thesis of the poem (people were happy in the Middle Ages or thereabouts when they did everything for the Christian god), but the biggest problem is that the poem is, to use a well worn cliche (itself a well worn cliche), all tell and no show. The poem needs a few original turns of phrase, an image or two, some nice sonics....i.e. poetic devices.

A religious poem can't solely consist of the poet telling the reader how much she loves god. It's all good and fine to love Krishna, but what's in it for the reader?

Mirth?


Not at the court
or on the field, .....these images are a bit overused. 'Field' is almost a cliche.

forget the merger,
any and all
great appointments,  ...can drop the 'great'

just remember
those days
when we surrendered: ... 

He made our peculiar
into great artists, ... sounds like a fifth grade morality class. Name an artist who was peculiar but your god made 'great'. Put something specific in there or else it's just bland

the finest
composers, musicians,
painters, teachers,
eloquent orators,

all for Him,
all for His use. ...I don't recall Cicero, Li Po, Hokusai, Tansen, Ibn Sina doing anything for the Christian god. So the 'finest' is culturally biased and hyperbolic. And there's another problem here - much of Renaissance art was actually commissioned by a moneyed Church. Michelangelo was painting for money, not god. 


We skipped about,
laughed,
happily sparked our lamps
atop the tallest hills; ....when was all this happening? between the Black Death and the St Bartholomew's Day's Massacre? Generic and uninteresting lines.

shining ever so brightly
happy, alive,
in love...
those were our glory years: ... all tell, no show

when the Joy of the Lord
was our strength.


Psalm 137
1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
2 We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
3 For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us
required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
4 How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?