In celebration of this day I include here the poem of Oliver St. John Gogarty, whose text is partially and not entirely accurately re-created in Joyce's masterpiece Ulysses in the very opening "chapter" (I prefer to call them divisions but what you will, I'm sure). Joyce names this poem in the book "The Ballad of Joking Jesus" but St. John Gogarty named it "The Song of the Cheerful (but Slightly Sarcastic) Jesus." It is reputed to be quite blasphemous, but I would never know having not given a slight shred of credence at any point in my life to the myth of "The Christ." Nevertheless, here are the lines in their entirety:
- I'm the queerest young fellow that ever was heard.
- My mother's a Jew; my father's a Bird
- With Joseph the Joiner I cannot agree
- So 'Here's to Disciples and Calvary.'
- If anyone thinks that I amn't divine,
- He gets no free drinks when I'm making the wine
- But have to drink water and wish it were plain
- That I make when the wine becomes water again.
- My methods are new and are causing surprise:
- To make the blind see I throw dust in their eyes
- To signify merely there must be a cod
- If the Commons will enter the Kingdom of God
- Now you know I don't swim and you know I don't skate
- I came down to the ferry one day and was late.
- So I walked on the water and all cried, in faith!
- For a Jewman it's better than having to bathe.
- Whenever I enter in triumph and pass
- You will find that my triumph is due to an ass
- (And public support is a grand sinecure
- When you once get the public to pity the poor.)
- Then give up your cabin and ask them for bread
- And they'll give you a stone habitation instead
- With fine grounds to walk in and raincoat to wear
- And the Sheep will be naked before you'll go bare.
- The more men are wretched the more you will rule
- But thunder out 'Sinner' to each bloody fool;
- For the Kingdom of God (that's within you) begins
- When you once make a fellow acknowledge he sins.
- Rebellion anticipates timely by 'Hope,'
- And stories of Judas and Peter the Pope
- And you'll find that you'll never be left in the lurch
- By children of Sorrows and Mother the Church
- Goodbye, now, goodbye, you are sure to be fed
- You will come on My Grave when I rise from the Dead
- What's bred in the bone cannot fail me to fly
- And Olivet's breezy—Goodbye now Goodbye.
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