Description
Instrumental arrangement of my choral setting of a satirical poem by G K Chesterton:
Wine and Water
Old Noah he had an ostrich farm
with fowls on the largest scale,
and he ate his egg with a ladle
in a egg-cup big as a pail,
And the soup he took was Elephant Soup
and the fish he took was Whale,
But they all were small
to the cellar he took
when he set out to sail,
And Noah he often said to
his wife when he sat
down to dine,
“I don’t care where the water goes
if it doesn’t get into the wine.”
The cataract of the cliff of heaven
fell blinding off the brink
As if it would wash the stars away
as suds go down a sink,
The seven heavens came roaring down
for the throats of hell to drink,
And Noah he cocked his eye and said,
“It looks like rain, I think,
The water has drowned the Matterhorn
as deep as a Mendip mine,
But I don’t care where the water goes
if it doesn’t get into the wine.”
But Noah he sinned,
and we all have sinned;
on tipsy feet we trod,
Till a great big black teetotaller
was sent to us for a rod,
And you can’t get wine at the P.S.A.,
or chapel, or Eisteddfod,
For the Curse of Water has come again
because of the wrath of God,
And water is on the Bishop’s board
and the Higher Thinker’s shrine,
But I don’t care where the water goes
if it doesn’t get into the wine.