Religion

When your speaker is a bishop, you know that religion is going to play a pretty significant role in the poem. That's definitely the case here, but not in the way you might expect. Our speaker's more than just a bishop, as it turns out; he's a bishop on his deathbed. Maybe for that reason he gets a few of his religious wires crossed—especially toward the end of the poem. Just how pious is this guy? A look at this poem's religious imagery tells us that he might not be on the expressway to heaven, after all.

• Line 1: This is a reference to the biblical passage Ecclesiastes 1.2: "All is vanity." Interestingly, it seems to be the only line not directly spoken by the bishop, who then goes on to say a whole lot of really vain things. It lets us know right off the bat that our bishop is not the holiest dude we've ever met.
• Line 44: This is a pretty sacrilegious simile. We're pretty sure that references to the Madonna's breasts are not something church leaders make very often. Our bishop seems to have a pretty crude view of religion.
• Lines 48-49: Wow—our bishop wants to be depicted in the afterlife just like God. So, is this guy a bishop because he loves God so much, or is he just interested in being worshiped himself? These lines seem to suggest the latter.
• Line 73: Here the bishop claims to have an "in" with St. Praxed, which would allow him to ask her for nice horses and pretty mistresses for his sons. This is a much less…well, holy, relationship than we might have imagined between a bishop and a saint. Should a bishop be name-dropping like this?
• Line 95: Um, you're wrong on both counts here, bishop. It was Jesus who delivered the sermon on the mount, and St. Praxedes was a woman. You could put his confusion in this line down to his being near death, but you can also see a lack of piety in the way he whiffs on these pretty simple details.
• Line 101: This seems to be the only line of regret—or even reflection—in the whole poem. A pilgrimage is, by definition, a voyage undertaken for a religious reason. Here the bishop seems to recognize that his own religious voyage was a pretty disappointing run.