Gilbert Keith Chesterton

All round they murmur, 'O profane, Keep thy heart's secret hid as gold'; But I, by God, would sooner be

That night the whole world mingled, The souls were babes at play, And angel danced with devil.

My Lady clad herself in grey, That caught and clung about her throat; Then all the long grey winter day

The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap, His hair was like a light. (O weary, weary were the world,

(The Chief Constable has issued a statement declaring that carol singing in the streets by children is illegal, and morally and physically injurious. He appeals to the public to discourage the practice.--Daily Paper.) God rest you merry gentlemen, Let nothing you dismay;

He was, through boyhood's storm and shower, My best, my nearest friend; We wore one hat, smoked one cigar,

All things grew upwards, foul and fair: The great trees fought and beat the air With monstrous wings that would have flown;

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,

Why should I care for the Ages Because they are old and grey? To me, like sudden laughter,

Fair faces crowd on Christmas night Like seven suns a-row, But all beyond is the wolfish wind

When all my days are ending And I have no song to sing, I think I shall not be too old

"A drove of cattle came into a village called Swords; and was stopped by the rioters."--Daily Paper. In the place called Swords on the Irish road It is told for a new renown

Our God who made two lovers in a garden, And smote them separate and set them free, Their four eyes wild for wonder and wrath and pardon

Blessings there are of cradle and of clan, Blessings that fall of priests' and princes' hands; But never blessing full of lives and lands,

This is the weird of a world-old folk, That not till the last link breaks, Not till the night is blackest,

Another tattered rhymster in the ring, With but the old plea to the sneering schools, That on him too, some secret night in spring

On must we go: we search dead leaves, We chase the sunset's saddest flames, The nameless hues that o'er and o'er

How many million stars there be, That only God hath number'd; But this one only chosen for me

They spoke of Progress spiring round, Of Light and Mrs. Humphry Ward, It is not true to say I frowned,

The gallows in my garden, people say, Is new and neat and adequately tall. I tie the noose on in a knowing way

I saw an old man like a child, His blue eyes bright, his white hair wild, Who turned for ever, and might not stop,

If trees were tall and grasses short, As in some crazy tale, If here and there a sea were blue

A mountainous and mystic brute No rein can curb, no arrow shoot, Upon whose domed deformed back

Before the grass grew over me, I knew one good man through and through, And knew a soul and body joined

There is one sin: to call a green leaf grey, Whereat the sun in heaven shuddereth. There is one blasphemy: for death to pray,

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way,

Clear was the night: the moon was young: The larkspurs in the plots Mingled their orange with the gold

I cannot count the pebbles in the brook. Well hath He spoken: 'Swear not by thy head, Thou knowest not the hairs,' though He, we read,

The happy men that lose their heads They find their heads in heaven, As cherub heads with cherub wings,

The sun was black with judgment, and the moon Blood: but between I saw a man stand, saying, 'To me at least

(SUGGESTED INSCRIPTION PROBABLY NOT SUGGESTED BY THE COMMITTEE) The hucksters haggle in the mart

To every Man his Mystery, A trade and only one: The masons make the hives of men,

In the world's whitest morning As hoary with hope, The Builder of Bridges

We have graven the mountain of God with hands, As our hands were graven of God, they say, Where the seraphs burn in the sun like brands

The angels are singing like birds in a tree In the organ of good St. Cecily: And the parson reads with his hand upon

Lo! I am come to autumn, When all the leaves are gold; Grey hairs and golden leaves cry out

Between a meadow and a cloud that sped In rain and twilight, in desire and fear. I heard a secret--hearken in your ear,

If the stars fell; night's nameless dreams Of bliss and blasphemy came true, If skies were green and snow were gold,

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

If men should rise and return to the noise and time of the tourney, The name and fame of the tabard, the tangle of gules and gold, Would these things stand and suffice for the bourne of a backward journey,

If I ever go back to Baltimore, The city of Maryland, I shall miss again as I missed before

I Cut a staff in a churchyard copse, I clad myself in ragged things, I set a feather in my cap

The silver and violet leopard of the night Spotted with stars and smooth with silence sprang; And though three doors stood open, the end of light

Observe these Pirates bold and gay, That sail a gory sea: Notice their bright expression:--

Impetuously I sprang from bed, Long before lunch was up, That I might drain the dizzy dew

When you came over the top of the world In the great day on the Downs, The air was crisp and the clouds were curled,

Augurs that watched archaic birds Such plum'd prodigies might read, The eagles that were double-faced,

Form 991785, Sub-Section D The Roman threw us a road, a road, And sighed and strolled away:

Form 17955301, Sub-Section Z The earth is a place on which England is found, And you find it however you twirl the globe round;

Form 8277059, Sub-Section K I remember my mother, the day that we met, A thing I shall never entirely forget;

Form 8889512, Sub-Section Q How slowly learns the child at school The names of all the nobs that rule

Form 339125, Sub-Section M Twice one is two, Twice two is four,

Form 394411102, Sub-Section X "All practical Eugenists are agreed on the importance of sleep."--The Eugenic Congress. When Science taught mankind to breathe

High on the wall that holds Jerusalem I saw one stand under the stars like stone. And when I perish it shall not be known

Stilton, thou shouldst be living at this hour And so thou art. Nor losest grace thereby; England has need of thee, and so have I--

A child sits in a sunny place, Too happy for a smile, And plays through one long holiday

A bird flew out at the break of day From the nest where it had curled, And ere the eve the bird had set

(St. Barbara is the patron saint of artillery and of those in danger of sudden death.) When the long grey lines came flooding upon Paris in the plain, We stood and drank of the last free air we never could taste again:

Five kings rule o'er the Amorite, Mighty as fear and old as night; Swathed with unguent and gold and jewel,

Dedication Of great limbs gone to chaos, A great face turned to night--

Through what fierce incarnations, furled In fire and darkness, did I go, Ere I was worthy in the world

After one moment when I bowed my head And the whole world turned over and came upright, And I came out where the old road shone white,

Witness all: that unrepenting, Feathers flying, music high, I go down to death unshaken

When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood

Name not his deed: in shuddering and in haste We dragged him darkly o'er the windy fell: That night there was a gibbet in the waste,

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

Were I that wandering citizen whose city is the world, I would not weep for all that fell before the flags were furled; I would not let one murmur mar the trumpets volleying forth

We watched you building, stone by stone, The well-washed cells and well-washed graves We shall inhabit but not own

Dark the sea was: but I saw him, One great head with goggle eyes, Like a diabolic cherub

To teach the grey earth like a child, To bid the heavens repent, I only ask from Fate the gift

'Elder father, though thine eyes Shine with hoary mysteries, Canst thou tell what in the heart

The still sweet meadows shimmered: and I stood And cursed them, bloom of hedge and bird of tree, And bright and high beyond the hunch-backed wood

Many have Earth's lovers been, Tried in seas and wars, I ween; Yet the mightiest have I seen:

When we went hunting the Dragon In the days when we were young, We tossed the bright world over our shoulder

Laugh your best, O blazoned forests, Me ye shall not shift or shame With your beauty: here among you

A wan new garment of young green Touched, as you turned your soft brown hair And in me surged the strangest prayer

The violet scent is sacred Like dreams of angels bright; The hawthorn smells of passion

I dreamed a dream of heaven, white as frost, The splendid stillness of a living host; Vast choirs of upturned faces, line o'er line.

If sunset clouds could grow on trees It would but match the may in flower; And skies be underneath the seas

O learned man who never learned to learn, Save to deduce, by timid steps and small, From towering smoke that fire can never burn

(On the Embankment in stormy weather.) A livid sky on London And like iron steeds that rear

I love to see the little stars All dancing to one tune; I think quite highly of the Sun,

Priest, is any song-bird stricken? Is one leaf less on the tree? Is this wine less red and royal

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:

(With apologies to a beautiful poem.) Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe decrease By cautious birth-control and die in peace)

'What of vile dust?' the preacher said. Methought the whole world woke, The dead stone lived beneath my foot,

Our souls shall be Leviathans In purple seas of wine When drunkenness is dead with death,

Chattering finch and water-fly Are not merrier than I; Here among the flowers I lie

Blue-eyed was Elf the minstrel, With womanish hair and ring, Yet heavy was his hand on sword,

The World is ours till sunset, Holly and fire and snow; And the name of our dead brother

Sunder me from my bones, O sword of God, Till they stand stark and strange as do the trees; That I whose heart goes up with the soaring woods

A wandering world of rivers, A wavering world of trees, If the world grow dim and dizzy

I plod and peer amid mean sounds and shapes, I hunt for dusty gain and dreary praise, And slowly pass the dismal grinning days,

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;

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,

The wasting thistle whitens on my crest, The barren grasses blow upon my spear, A green, pale pennon: blazon of wild faith

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. Above the porch a grotesque carved bracket, supporting a lantern. Astride of it sits CAPTAIN REDFEATHER, a flagon in his hand.

We came behind him by the wall, My brethren drew their brands, And they had strength to strike him down--

My eyes are full of lonely mirth: Reeling with want and worn with scars, For pride of every stone on earth,

I had grown weary of him; of his breath And hands and features I was sick to death. Each day I heard the same dull voice and tread;

We will not let thee be, for thou art ours. We thank thee still, though thou forget these things, For that hour's sake when thou didst wake all powers

Trampled yet red is the last of the embers, Red the last cloud of a sun that has set; What of your sleeping though Flanders remembers,

Do you remember one immortal Lost moment out of time and space, What time we thought, who passed the portal

For every tiny town or place God made the stars especially; Babies look up with owlish face

Lift up your heads: in life, in death, God knoweth his head was high. Quit we the coward's broken breath

The vision of a haloed host That weep around an empty throne; And, aureoles dark and angels dead,

A wan sky greener than the lawn, A wan lawn paler than the sky. She gave a flower into my hand,