Possible Clues:

• Poem, while oddly cheery, funny
• Short comic rhyme
• Champ getting to grips with algebraic characters oddly omitted four lines
• Poem from minister shortly cut
• Comic biographical poem
• Form of verse member of the clergy abridged, then cut
• Edmund C Bentley, for instance mocked gently; Vivaldi, when cut, cut again
• Short priest cut humorous poem
• Witty lines from church worker pruned by hack
• Edmund -- Bentley, inventor of a comic verse form