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    Poems by G. K. Chesterton
    Poems by G. K. Chesterton
    Poems by G. K. Chesterton
    Ebook158 pages1 hour

    Poems by G. K. Chesterton

    By G.K Chesterton

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    This antiquarian volume contains a collection of poems written by Gilbert Keith Chesterton. A delightful collection worthy of a place atop any bookshelf, this compendium is a veritable must-have for fans of Chesterton's work, and is one not to be missed by the discerning collector. The poems contained herein include: 'To Edmund Clerihew Bentley', 'To Hilaire Belloc', 'To M.E.W., Lepanto', 'The March of the Black Mountain', 'Blessed are the Peacemakers', 'The Wife of Flanders', 'The Crusader Returns from Captivity', 'Glencoe', 'Love's Trappist', and many more. Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874 - 1936) was an English writer, philosopher, theologian, poet, orator, dramatist, journalist, literary and art critic, biographer, and Christian apologist, often referred to as the "prince of paradox." We are republishing this vintage work in a modern, affordable edition complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateMar 23, 2011
    ISBN9781446546611
    Poems by G. K. Chesterton
    Author

    G.K Chesterton

    G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) was a prolific English journalist and author best known for his mystery series featuring the priest-detective Father Brown and for the metaphysical thriller The Man Who Was Thursday. Baptized into the Church of England, Chesterton underwent a crisis of faith as a young man and became fascinated with the occult. He eventually converted to Roman Catholicism and published some of Christianity’s most influential apologetics, including Heretics and Orthodoxy. 

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      Poems by G. K. Chesterton - G.K Chesterton

      I

      TO EDMUND CLERIHEW BENTLEY

      THE DEDICATION OF THE MAN WHO

      WAS THURSDAY

      A CLOUD was on the mind of men, and wailing went the weather,

      Yea, a sick cloud upon the soul when we were boys together.

      Science announced nonentity and art admired decay;

      The world was old and ended: but you and I were gay.

      Round us in antic order their crippled vices came—

      Lust that had lost its laughter, fear that had lost its shame.

      Like the white lock of Whistler, that lit our aimless gloom,

      Men showed their own white feather as proudly as a plume.

      Life was a fly that faded, and death a drone that stung;

      The world was very old indeed when you and I were young.

      They twisted even decent sin to shapes not to be named:

      Men were ashamed of honour; but we were not ashamed.

      Weak if we were and foolish, not thus we failed, not thus;

      When that black Baal blocked the heavens he had no hymns from us.

      Children we were—our forts of sand were even as weak as we,

      High as they went we piled them up to break that bitter sea.

      Fools as we were in motley, all jangling and absurd,

      When all church bells were silent our cap and bells were heard.

      Not all unhelped we held the fort, our tiny flags unfurled;

      Some giants laboured in that cloud to lift it from the world.

      I find again the book we found, I feel the hour that flings

      Far out of fish-shaped Paumanok some cry of cleaner things;

      And the Green Carnation withered, as in forest fires that pass,

      Roared in the wind of all the world ten million leaves of grass;

      Or sane and sweet and sudden as a bird sings in the rain—

      Truth out of Tusitala spoke and pleasure out of pain.

      Yea, cool and clear and sudden as a bird sings in the grey,

      Dunedin to Samoa spoke, and darkness unto day.

      But we were young; we lived to see God break their bitter charms,

      God and the good Republic come riding back in arms:

      We have seen the city of Mansoul, even as it rocked, relieved—

      Blessed are they who did not see, but being blind, believed.

      This is a tale of those old fears, even of those emptied hells,

      And none but you shall understand the true thing that it tells—

      Of what colossal gods of shame could cow men and yet crash,

      Of what huge devils hid the stars, yet fell at a pistol flash.

      The doubts that were so plain to chase, so dreadful to withstand—

      Oh, who shall understand but you; yea, who shall understand?

      The doubts that drove us through the night as we two talked amain,

      And day had broken on the streets e’er it broke upon the brain.

      Between us, by the peace of God, such truth can now be told;

      Yea, there is strength in striking root, and good in growing old.

      We have found common things at last, and marriage and a creed,

      And I may safely write it now, and you may safely read.

      TO HILAIRE BELLOC

      THE DEDICATION OF THE NAPOLEON OF

      NOTTING HILL

      FOR every tiny town or place

      God made the stars especially;

      Babies look up with owlish face

      And see them tangled in a tree:

      You saw a moon from Sussex Downs,

      A Sussex moon, untravelled still,

      I saw a moon that was the town’s,

      The largest lamp on Campden Hill.

      Yea, Heaven is everywhere at home,

      The big blue cap that always fits,

      And so it is (be calm; they come

      To goal at last, my wandering wits),

      So is it with the heroic thing;

      This shall not end for the world’s end,

      And though the sullen engines swing,

      Be you not much afraid, my friend.

      This did not end by Nelson’s urn

      Where an immortal England sits—

      Nor where your tall young men in turn

      Drank death like wine at Austerlitz.

      And when the pedants bade us mark

      What cold mechanic happenings

      Must come; our souls said in the dark,

      Belike; but there are likelier things.

      Likelier across these flats afar,

      These sulky levels smooth and free,

      The drums shall crash a waltz of war

      And Death shall dance with Liberty;

      Likelier the barricades shall blare

      Slaughter below and smoke above,

      And death and hate and hell declare

      That men have found a thing to love.

      Far from your sunny uplands set

      I saw the dream; the streets I trod,

      The lit straight streets shot out and met

      The starry streets that point to God;

      The legend of an epic hour

      A child I dreamed, and dream it still,

      Under the great grey water-tower

      That strikes the stars on Campden Hill.

      TO M. E. W.

      WORDS, for alas my trade is words, a barren burst of rhyme,

      Rubbed by a hundred rhymesters, battered a thousand times,

      Take them, you, that smile on strings, those nobler sounds than mine,

      The words that never lie, or brag, or flatter, or malign.

      I give a hand to my lady, another to my friend,

      To whom you too have given a hand; and so before the end

      We four may pray, for all

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