Thomas Hardy’s Absent-Mindedness in a Parish Choir

There was Nicholas Puddingcome, first fiddle,

And Timothy Thomas on the bass viol:

The tenor fiddle was the shrill John Biles

While Robert Dowdle doodled on the clarionet.

Old Mr Nicks was the prodigious oboist

And Daniel Hornhead brandished the serpent.

This was the formidable Longpuddle Band.

It happened on the Sunday after Christmas:

They played, it turned out, for the last time

– Although they didn’t know it at the time –

In Longpuddle Church in surprising circumstance.

The Longpuddle Band was famously versatile,

Equally at home with pious Sunday psalms

As with riotous jigs and reels. After the first

They might sip tea demurely in fine china;

After the second, a boisterous rum and cider.

To consider the Band’s best Ability,

One must stress their great Versatility.

They are calm for a psalm

And take the Palm Sunday palm,

While for dances one notes their Febrility.

It happened that, on several nights before

The appointed service at Longpuddle Church,

The Band was performing at The Tinker’s Arms

And stayed up late playing with wind in their sails.

The Dashing White Sergeant and other hectic reels

Were heartily followed by blazing rum and cider.

That Sunday after Christmas there was snow;

The Church was freezing in the gallery.

So Nicholas was prepared with hot brandy and beer

Kept warm in Timothy’s bass viol bag.

During the Absolution they took thimblefuls

And more after the Creed, then more again

(To finish it) at intervals during the sermon.

At last they were almost warm but, unfortunately,

The sermon was quite long. All of them now slept.

Notwithstanding the role they must play

To accompany the Chant of the Day,

Beer and brandy are strong

When the sermon is long

And each man in the Band was Away.

The afternoon remained exceeding dark.

The Band slept resolutely on upstairs.

The sermon ended in some platitudes

And the Parson gave the signal for the hymn.

But no one in the choir sounded the tune

And all the congregation turned their heads.

Then Levi Limpet, an eager gallery boy,

Nudged Timothy and Nicholas and said,

“Begin! Begin!” Nicholas starting up

Cried, “What is this? What? What’s next? Where are we?”

And, thinking he was in the same dark room,

At last night’s strident party at the Inn

Plunged hard and fast with bow and scraping fiddle

Into their favourite jig, The Devil Among the Tailors;

The cobwebs in the roof shivered like ghosts.

They are well on the wrong side of praying

And don’t hear what the curate is saying.

When you wake in the dark

It is no simple lark

To know what you’re meant to be playing.

The rest of the Band now thoroughly awake

And entering the fray and nothing doubting

Joined in with all their strength. Then Nicholas

Perceiving in the gloom no-one had moved

Called out as he was wont to do and urged,

“Top couples cross hands! And every man

Kiss his partner under the mistletoe!”

The boy Levi bolted down the stairs,

The parson’s hair starkly stood on end

And, thinking the choir had lost their wits, called,

“Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop! What is this travesty?”

Then honest folk stepped from their pews and asked,

“What wickedness is this? We shall be consumed

Like Sodom and Gomorrah.” The parson and Squire

Had never known so insulting or disgraceful thing,

All well beyond the wrong side of playing.

Oboe, clarionet and bass fiddle

With Nicholas shamed in the middle

Never to play there again

Now tipped into the lane

All condemmed for this vile taradiddle.

And next, the Squire decreed, “Never again

Will the Longpuddle Band darken these Sacred Aisles.

Instead, I donate a barrel-organ capable

Of twenty-four hymns and only those,

The handle turned by a steady, respectable man.”