[Julie Steiner]

Hmmm. At least the original Vicar only had to turn the cat in the pan once per 8-line verse. Lucy's 16-line limit will put our cats on a rotisserie!

George Orwell's essay on the Vicar's legacy, although it has little to do with the actual poem, might be inspirational. The Reader's Digest version:

In the churchyard there stands a magnificent yew tree which, according to
a notice at its foot, was planted by no less a person than the Vicar of
Bray himself. And it struck me at the time as curious that such a man
should have left such a relic behind him.

The Vicar of Bray, though he was well equipped to be a leader-writer on
THE TIMES, could hardly be described as an admirable character. Yet,
after this lapse of time, all that is left of him is a comic song and a
beautiful tree, which has rested the eyes of generation after generation
and must surely have outweighed any bad effects which he produced by his
political quislingism.

[...]

I am not suggesting that one can discharge all one's
obligations towards society by means of a private re-afforestation
scheme. Still, it might not be a bad idea, every time you commit an
antisocial act, to make a note of it in your diary, and then, at the
appropriate season, push an acorn into the ground.

And, if even one in twenty of them came to maturity, you might do quite a
lot of harm in your lifetime, and still, like the Vicar of Bray, end up
as a public benefactor after all.

Full essay at http://www.george-orwell.org/A_Good_...of_Bray/0.html