A Carol for Lent

Because maestro_live just put me to mind of the song 'The Gnu' (I am not Gary Gnu, thank you very much... it really pays to know w'hoo's w'hoo) and in perverse observance of my own temporary teetotalage vice [sic] my tendency in all other times to drink 'til aswim in penes, I offer this reminder of the not inconsiderable charms of Michael Flanders and Donald Swann:

Sonnet from the Porch de Guise

One should never meet a person one admires:
For what he does is always so much better
than what he is. An artist's work inspires,
uplifts us, challenges us like a letter
to the editor of our very souls;
how sad, then, when that artist, unembossed,
stands in the flesh revealed, how many holes
it takes to fill the Albert Hall. A caust-
ic film of disappointment swathes our dreams
for what we are, and what we yet may be,
and what we idly worship; it all seems
but wistful affectations which, to me,
suggest a love of truthless, gilt display:
The oldest lie, a man in god's array.


Thanks for the decidedly tardy soldier unxkbos for the inspiration. The quotes are, in order, from Moulin Rouge (1952, NOT 2001, thank you very much), 'A Day in the Life' from the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper, and my own Sonnet XX (1994, rev. 2001).