G. K. Chesterton

“ When the sun is black in heaven, The moon as blood above, And the earth is full of hatred, This people tells its love. In change, eclipse, and peril, Under the whole world's scorn, By blood and death and darkness The Saxon peace is sworn; That all our fruit be gathered, And all our race take hands, And the sea be a Saxon river That runs through Saxon lands. ”

“ THE HAPPY MAN To teach the grey earth like a child, To bid the heavens repent, I only ask from Fate the gift Of one man well content. Him will I find: though when in vain I search the feast and mart, The fading flowers of liberty, The painted masks of art. I only find him at the last, On one old hill where nod Golgotha's ghastly trinity— Three persons and one god.
THE UNPARDONABLE SIN I do not cry, beloved, neither curse. Silence and strength, these two at least are good. He gave me sun and stars and ought He could, But not a woman's love ”

“ He would be like a child Girt with the tomes of some vast library, Who reads romance after romance, and smiles When every tale ends well: impersonal As God he grows—melted in suns and stars; So would this boundless man, whom none could spy, Taunt him with virtue, censure him with vice, Rejoice in all men's joys; with golden pen Write all the live romances of the earth To a triumphant close.... Alone and free— In this grey, cool, clean garden, washed with winds, What do I come to do among the grass, The daisies, and the dews? An awful thing, To prove I am that man. ”

“ Shall I not cry the truth?'—the dead man cowered— Is it not sad, with life so tame and cold, What earth should fade into the sun's white fires With the best jest in all its tales untold? 'If I should cry that in this shrine lie hid Stories that Satan from his mouth would spew; Wild tales that men in hell tell hoarsely—speak! Saint and Deliverer! Should I slander you?' Slowly the cowering corse reared up its head, 'Nay, I am vile ... but when for all to see, You stand there, pure and painless—death of life! Let the stars fall—I say you slander me! ”

“ No priest would curse, no crowd would know.' Then cowered: a daisy, half concealed, Watched for the fame of that poor field; And in that flower and suddenly Earth opened its one eye on me.
JOSEPH If the stars fell; night's nameless dreams Of bliss and blasphemy came true, If skies were green and snow were gold, And you loved me as I love you; O long light hands and curled brown hair, And eyes where sits a naked soul; Dare I even then draw near and burn My fingers in the aureole? Yes, in the one wise foolish hour God gives this strange strength to a man. ”

“ THE WORLD'S LOVER My eyes are full of lonely mirth: Reeling with want and worn with scars, For pride of every stone on earth, I shake my spear at all the stars. A live bat beats my crest above, Lean foxes nose where I have trod, And on my naked face the love Which is the loneliness of God. ”

“ But for a curse God cleared my sight, And where each tree doth grow I see a life with awful eyes, And I must lay it low.
ART COLOURS On must we go: we search dead leaves, We chase the sunset's saddest flames, The nameless hues that o'er and o'er In lawless wedding lost their names. God of the daybreak! Better be Black savages; and grin to gird Our limbs in gaudy rags of red, The laughing-stock of brute and bird; And feel again the fierce old feast, Blue for seven heavens that had sufficed, A gold like shining hoards, a red Like roses from the blood of Christ. ”

“ He can love virtue, for he still loves vice. He is not all burnt out. He beats me there (How I beat him in owning it!) ; in love He is still young, and has the joy of shame. And for the Lady Olive—who shall speak? A man may weigh the courage of a man, But if there be a bottomless abyss It is a woman's valour: such as I Can only bow the knee and hide the face (Thank God there is no God to spy on me And bring his curséd crowns) . No, there is none: The old incurable hunger of the world Surges in wolfish wars, age after age. ”

“ Only this much: if one, deserving well, Touching your thin young hands and making suit, Feel not himself a crawling thing, a brute, Buried and bricked in a forgotten hell; Prophet and poet be he over sod, Prince among angels in the highest place, God help me, I will smite him on the face, Before the glory of the face of God. ”

“ And no mad tyrant, with almighty ban, Who in strong madness dreams himself divine, But hears through fumes of flattery and of wine The thunder of this blessing name him man. Let all earth rot past saints' and seraphs' plea, Yet shall a Voice cry through its last lost war, 'This is the world, this red wreck of a star, That a man blessed beneath an alder-tree.'
KING'S CROSS STATION This circled cosmos whereof man is god Has suns and stars of green and gold and red, And cloudlands of great smoke, that range o'er range Far floating, hide its iron heavens o'erhead. ”

“ PRIEST. He has vanished REDFEATHER. To the stars. [The Priest looks up.] PRIEST [angrily] . What would you there, sir? REDFEATHER. Give you all a toast. [Lifts his flagon. More priests come out.] I see my life behind me: bad enough— Drink, duels, madness, beggary, and pride, The life of the unfit: yet ere I drop On Nature's rubbish heap, I weigh it all, And give you all a toast— [Reels to his feet and stands.] The health of God! [They all recoil from him.] Let's give the Devil of the Heavens His due! He that made grass so green, and wine so red, Is not so black as you have painted him. ”

“ But I will never curse a man, Even in a mirror. OLIVE [smiling at him] . And the Devil's dance? REDFEATHER. The Devil plotted since the world was young With alchemies of fire and witches' oils And magic. But he never made a man. OLIVE. No; not a man. REDFEATHER. Not even my Lord Orm. Look at the house now— [She starts and looks.] Honest brick and tiles. OLIVE. You have a strange strength in this hour. REDFEATHER. This hour I see with mortal eye as in one flash The whole divine democracy of things, And dare the stars to scorn a scavenge-heap. Olive, I tell you every soul is great. ”

“ Stand in silence: steep your raiment In the night that hath no star; Don the mortal dress of devils, Blacker than their spirits are. Since ye may not, of your mercy, Ere I lie on such a hearse, Hurl me to the living jackals God hath built for sepulchres. ”

“ Suppose a man Perfectly free and utterly alone, Free of all love of law, equally free Of all the love of mutiny it breeds, Free of the love of heaven, and also free Of all the love of hell it drives us to ”

“ THE END OF FEAR Though the whole heaven be one-eyed with the moon, Though the dead landscape seem a thing possessed, Yet I go singing through that land oppressed As one that singeth through the flowers of June. ”

“ The godless world Be thanked there is no God to spy on me, Catch me and crown me with a vulgar crown For what I do: if I should once believe The horror of that ancient Eavesdropper Behind the starry arras of the skies, I should—well, well, enough of menaces— should not do the thing I come to do. ”

“ Behold it! not in vain, Four centuries' dooms of torture Choked in the throat of Spain, Ere priest or tyrant triumph— We know how well—we know— Bone of that bone can whiten, Blood of that blood can flow. Deep grows the hate of kindred, Its roots take hold on hell; No peace or praise can heal it, But a stranger heals it well. ”

“ Or must Fate act the same grey farce again, And wait, till one, amid Time's wrecks and scars, Speaks to a ruin here, 'What poet-race Shot such cyclopean arches at the stars?'
THE HUMAN TREE Many have Earth's lovers been, Tried in seas and wars, I ween; Yet the mightiest have I seen: Yea, the best saw I. One that in a field alone Stood up stiller than a stone Lest a moth should fly. Birds had nested in his hair, On his shoon were mosses rare. Insect empires flourished there, Worms in ancient wars; But his eyes burn like a glass, Hearing a great sea of grass Roar towards the stars. ”

“ To me, like sudden laughter, The stars are fresh and gay; The world is a daring fancy, And finished yesterday. Why should I bow to the Ages Because they were drear and dry? Slow trees and ripening meadows For me go roaring by, A living charge, a struggle To escalade the sky. The eternal suns and systems, Solid and silent all, To me are stars of an instant, Only the fires that fall From God's good rocket, rising On this night of carnival.
ULTIMATE The vision of a haloed host That weep around an empty throne; And, aureoles dark and angels dead, Man with his own life stands alone. ”

“ THE LAMP POST Laugh your best, O blazoned forests, Me ye shall not shift or shame With your beauty: here among you Man hath set his spear of flame. Lamp to lamp we send the signal, For our lord goes forth to war; Since a voice, ere stars were builded, Bade him colonise a star. Laugh ye, cruel as the morning, Deck your heads with fruit and flower, Though our souls be sick with pity, Yet our hands are hard with power. We have read your evil stories, We have heard the tiny yell Through the voiceless conflagration Of your green and shining hell. ”

“ You have weighed the stars in a balance, and grasped the skies in a span: Take, if you must have answer, the word of a common man. Deep in my life lies buried one love unhealed, unshriven, One hunger still shall haunt me—yea, in the streets of heaven; This is the burden, babbler, this is the curse shall cling, This is the thing I bring you; this is the pleasant thing. 'Gainst you and all your sages, no joy of mine shall strive, This one dead self shall shatter the men you call alive. ”

“ There was one hour amid all these When I had stripped off like a tawdry glove My starriest hopes and wants, for very love Of time and desolate eternities. Yea, for one great hour's triumph, not in me Nor any hope of mine did I rejoice, But in a meadow game of girls and boys Some sunset in the centuries to be.
CYCLOPEAN A mountainous and mystic brute No rein can curb, no arrow shoot, Upon whose domed deformed back I sweep the planets scorching track. Old is the elf, and wise, men say, His hair grows green as ours grows grey; He mocks the stars with myriad hands. ”

“ Shall not one mortal man alive Hold up his head?
THE WOOD-CUTTER We came behind him by the wall, My brethren drew their brands, And they had strength to strike him down— And I to bind his hands. Only once, to a lantern gleam, He turned his face from the wall, And it was as the accusing angel's face On the day when the stars shall fall. I grasped the axe with shaking hands, I stared at the grass I trod; For I feared to see the whole bare heavens Filled with the face of God. ”

“ I have seen a man, by shouting, Seek to orphan all the stars. I have seen a fool half-fashioned Borrow from the heavens a tongue, So to curse them more at leisure— —And I trod him not as dung. For I saw that finny goblin Hidden in the abyss untrod; And I knew there can be laughter On the secret face of God. Blow the trumpets, crown the sages, Bring the age by reason fed! (He that sitteth in the heavens, 'He shall laugh'—the prophet said.) ”

“ In youth I sought the prince of men, Captain in cosmic wars, Our Titan, even the weeds would show Defiant, to the stars. But now a great thing in the street Seems any human nod, Where shift in strange democracy The million masks of God. ”

“ E.C.B. Before the grass grew over me, I knew one good man through and through, And knew a soul and body joined Are stronger than the heavens are blue. A wisdom worthy of thy joy, O great heart, read I as I ran; Now, though men smite me on the face, I cannot curse the face of man. I loved the man I saw yestreen Hanged with his babe's blood on his palms. I loved the man I saw to-day Who knocked not when he came with alms. Hush!—for thy sake I even faced The knowledge that is worse than hell ”

“ THE TWO WOMEN Lo! very fair is she who knows the ways Of joy: in pleasure's mocking wisdom old, The eyes that might be cold to flattery, kind; The hair that might be grey with knowledge, gold. But thou art more than these things, O my queen, For thou art clad in ancient wars and tears. ”

“ A man's whole life tied in a bundle there, And no good deed. I fear him. Come away.
GOOD NEWS Between a meadow and a cloud that sped In rain and twilight, in desire and fear. I heard a secret—hearken in your ear, 'Behold the daisy has a ring of red.' That hour, with half of blessing, half of ban, A great voice went through heaven, and earth and hell, Crying, 'We are tricked, my great ones, is it well? ”

“ Earth grows too beautiful around me: shapes And colours fearfully wax fair and clear, For I have heard, as thro' a door ajar, Scraps of the huge soliloquy of God That moveth as a mask the lips of man, If man be very silent: they were right, No flesh shall look upon the Lord and live. ”

“ Bear with us, O our sister, not in pride, Nor any scorn we see thee spoiled of knaves, But only shame to hear, where Danton died, Thy foul dead kings all laughing in their graves. Thou hast a right to rule thyself; to be The thing thou wilt ”

“ But God himself cried, 'Holiday!' And she gave me both her hands.
A MAN AND HIS IMAGE All day the nations climb and crawl and pray In one long pilgrimage to one white shrine, Where sleeps a saint whose pardon, like his peace, Is wide as death, as common, as divine. His statue in an aureole fills the shrine, The reckless nightingale, the roaming fawn, Share the broad blessing of his lifted hands, Under the canopy, above the lawn. ”