Gilbert Keith Chesterton

“ And faced me with my happy, hateful face.
I cowered like one that in a tower doth bide,
Shut in by mirrors upon every side;
Then I saw, islanded in skies alone
And silent, one that sat upon a throne.
His robe was bordered with rich rose and gold,
Green, purple, silver out of sunsets old;
But o'er his face a great cloud edged with fire,
Because it covereth the world's desire. ”

“ Speak!' And the dead man shuddered in the moon.
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! ”

“ 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.
There was no God before me: none sees where,
Between the brute-womb and the deaf, dead grave,
Unhoping, unrecorded, unrepaid,
I make with smoke, fire, and burnt-offering
This sacrifice to Chaos. [Lights the papers.] ”

“ 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. ”

“ We drove the great spear-blade in God's name among them.
Redder and redder the sword-flash fell.
Our eyes and our nostrils were hotter than hell;
Till full all the crest of the spear-surge shocking us,
Hoham of Hebron cried out mocking us,
'Nay, what need of the war-sword's plying,
Out of the desert the dust comes flying. ”

“ As naked as the hanging Christ,
As shameless as the sun in heaven.
These whimperers - have they spared to us
One dripping woe, one reeking sin?
These thieves that shatter their own graves
To prove the soul is dead within. ”

“ Cain never said, 'My brother slew himself.'
Tear you the truth out of your drivelling spy,
The maniac whom you set to swing death's scythe.
Nay; torture not the torturer - let him lie:
What need of racks to teach a worm to writhe? ”

“ The sun was black with judgment, and the moon
Blood: but between
I saw a man stand, saying, 'To me at least
The grass is green.
'There was no star that I forgot to fear
With love and wonder.
The birds have loved me' ”

“ Through blossoms red or gold,
Of my own green flower unfading,
A bitter smell and bold.
The lily smells of pardon,
The rose of mirth; but mine
Smells shrewd of death and honour,
And the doom of Adam's line. ”

“ He too can die. Keep back!
Olive, keep back from him! I did not fear
Him living, and he fell before my sword;
But dead I fear him. All is ended now;
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? ”

“ The World is ours till sunset,
Holly and fire and snow;
And the name of our dead brother
Who loved us long ago.
The grown folk mighty and cunning,
They write his name in gold;
But we can tell a little
Of the million tales he told. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These five kings said one to another,
'King unto king o'er the world is brother,
Seeing that now, for a sign and a wonder,
A red eclipse and a tongue of thunder,
A shape and a finger of desolation,
Is come against us a kingless nation. ”

“ But if that face you see,
Your soul shall know the smile of faith's
Awful frivolity.
Know that in this grotesque old masque
Too loud we cannot sing,
Or dance too wild, or speak too wide
To praise a hidden thing. ”

“ That not till the last link breaks,
Not till the night is blackest,
The blood of Hengist wakes.
When the sun is black in heaven,
The moon as blood above,
And the earth is full of hatred,
This people tells its love. ”

“ That night there was a gibbet in the waste,
And a new sin in hell.
Be his deed hid from commonwealths and kings,
By all men born be one true tale forgot;
But three things, braver than all earthly things,
Faced him and feared him not. ”

“ All things grew upwards, foul and fair:
The great trees fought and beat the air
With monstrous wings that would have flown;
But the old earth clung to her own,
Holding them back from heavenly wars,
Though every flower sprang at the stars. ”

“ Seems any human nod,
Where shift in strange democracy
The million masks of God.
In youth I sought the golden flower
Hidden in wood or wold,
But I am come to autumn,
When all the leaves are gold. ”

“ But cowled with smoke and starred with lamps
That strange land's light was still its own;
The word that witched the woods and hills
Spoke in the iron and the stone.
Not Nature's hand had ever curved
That mute unearthly porter's spine. ”

“ The Day of Judgment shall not challenge her.
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 ”

“ To warm me one day through,
If deep green hair grew on great hills,
I know what I should do.
In dark I lie: dreaming that there
Are great eyes cold or kind,
And twisted streets and silent doors,
And living men behind. ”

“ Why should I care for the Ages
Because they are old and grey?
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? ”

“ And pile the wood in stacks,
And take no fee from the shivering folk
Till I have cleansed the axe.
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. ”

“ And why grey palmers holy are,
And why grey minsters great in story,
And grey skies ring the morning star,
And grey hairs are a crown of glory.
My Lady clad herself in green,
Like meadows where the wind-waves pass ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Who knows what round the corner waits
To smite? If shipwreck, snare, or slur
Shall leave me with a head to lift,
Worthy of him that spoke with her.
A wan sky greener than the lawn,
A wan lawn paler than the sky. ”

“ The bondman's son and the bondman's daughter,
The hewer of wood and the drawer of water,
He that carries and he that brings,
And set your foot on the neck of kings.'
This is the story of Gibeon fight -
Where we smote the lords of the Amorite;
Where the banners of princes with slaughter were sodden. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One great head with goggle eyes,
Like a diabolic cherub
Flying in those fallen skies.
I have heard the hoarse deniers,
I have known the wordy wars;
I have seen a man, by shouting,
Seek to orphan all the stars. ”

“ You that have snarled through the ages, take your answer and go -
I know your hoary question, the riddle that all men know.
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. ”

“ Of an Egyptian god. 'Why should you rise?
'Do I not guard your secret from the sun?
The nations come; they kneel among the flowers
Sprung from your blood, blossoms of May and June,
Which do not poison them - is it not strange? ”

“ His house of ancient tale,
Where kings whose hands were kissed of kings
Went in: and came out pale.
O young ones of a darker day,
In art's wan colours clad,
Whose very love and hate are grey -
Whose very sin is sad. ”

“ 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.
He can demand, though not deserve,
Where ask he cannot, seize he can. ”

“ A sight not wholesome to the eyes of man.
OLIVE.
Captain, I tell you God once fell asleep.
And in that hour the world went as it would;
Dogs brought forth cats, and poison grew in grapes,
And Orm was born....
REDFEATHER.
Why, curse him! can he not
Be kicked or paid?
OLIVE [feverishly] .
Hush! He is just behind
There in the house - see how the great house glares,
Glares like an ogre's mask - the whole dead house
Possessed with bestial meaning....
[Screams]
Ah! ”

“ Burning for ever in consuming fire.
THE WILD KNIGHT
A dark manor-house shuttered and unlighted, outlined against a pale sunset: in front a large, but neglected, garden. To the right, in the foreground, the porch of a chapel, with coloured windows lighted. Hymns within. ”

“ Far into homeless space.
'Come down out of your dusty shrine
The living dust to see,
The flowers that at your sermon's end
Stand blazing silently.
'Rich white and blood-red blossom; stones,
Lichens like fire encrust ”