The Essential G. K. Chesterton

by G. K. Chesterton

  Fools! For I also had my hour; One far fierce hour and sweet: There was a shout about my ears, And palms before my feet.

  THE BEATIFIC VISION

  Through what fierce incarnations, furled In fire and darkness, did I go, Ere I was worthy in the world To see a dandelion grow?

  Well, if in any woes or wars I bought my naked right to be, Grew worthy of the grass, nor gave The wren, my brother, shame for me.

  But what shall God not ask of him In the last time when all is told, Who saw her stand beside the hearth, The firelight garbing her in gold?

  THE HOPE OF THE STREETS

  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 The thunder and the splendour of the sea.

  Give back the Babylon where I was born, The lips that gape give back, the hands that grope, And noise and blood and suffocating scorn An eddy of fierce faces--and a hope

  That 'mid those myriad heads one head find place, With brown hair curled like breakers of the sea, And two eyes set so strangely in the face That all things else are nothing suddenly.

  ECCLESIASTES

  There is one sin: to call a green leaf grey, Whereat the sun in heaven shuddereth. There is one blasphemy: for death to pray, For God alone knoweth the praise of death.

  There is one creed: 'neath no world-terror's wing Apples forget to grow on apple-trees. There is one thing is needful--everything-- The rest is vanity of vanities.

  THE SONG OF THE CHILDREN

  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.

  He taught them laws and watchwords, To preach and struggle and pray; But he taught us deep in the hayfield The games that the angels play.

  Had he stayed here for ever, Their world would be wise as ours-- And the king be cutting capers, And the priest be picking flowers.

  But the dark day came: they gathered: On their faces we could see They had taken and slain our brother, And hanged him on a tree.

  THE FISH

  Dark the sea was: but I saw him, 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.

  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.)

  GOLD LEAVES

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

  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.

  In youth I sought the golden flower Hidden in wood or wold, But I am come to autumn, When all the leaves are gold.

  THOU SHALT NOT KILL

  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; I did not hate him: but I wished him dead. And he must with his blank face fill my life-- Then my brain blackened; and I snatched a knife.

  But ere I struck, my soul's grey deserts through A voice cried, 'Know at least what thing you do.' 'This is a common man: knowest thou, O soul, What this thing is? somewhere where seasons roll There is some living thing for whom this man Is as seven heavens girt into a span, For some one soul you take the world away-- Now know you well your deed and purpose. Slay!'

  Then I cast down the knife upon the ground And saw that mean man for one moment crowned. I turned and laughed: for there was no one by-- The man that I had sought to slay was I.

  A CERTAIN EVENING

  That night the whole world mingled, The souls were babes at play, And angel danced with devil. And God cried, 'Holiday!'

  The sea had climbed the mountain peaks, And shouted to the stars To come to play: and down they came Splashing in happy wars.

  The pine grew apples for a whim, The cart-horse built a nest; The oxen flew, the flowers sang, The sun rose in the west.

  And 'neath the load of many worlds, The lowest life God made Lifted his huge and heavy limbs And into heaven strayed.

  To where the highest life God made Before His presence stands; 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.

  But one strange night, a night of gale and flood, A sound came louder than the wild wind's tone; The grave-gates shook and opened: and one stood Blue in the moonlight, rotten to the bone.

  Then on the statue, graven with holy smiles, There came another smile--tremendous--one 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? 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! 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!

  'You make me perfect, public, colourless; You make my virtues sit at ease--you lie! For mine were never easy--lost or saved, I had a soul--I was. And where am I?

  Where is my good? the little real hoard, The secret tears, the sudden chivalries; The tragic love, the futile triumph--where? Thief, dog, and son of devils--where are these?

  I will lift up my head: in leprous loves Lost, and the soul's dishonourable scars-- By God I was a better man than This That stands and slanders me to all the stars.

  'Come down!' And with an awful cry, the corse Sprang on the sacred tomb of many tales, And stone and bone, locked in a loathsome strife, Swayed to the singing of the nightingales.

  Then one was thrown: and where the statue stood Under the canopy, above the lawn, The corse stood; grey and lean, with lifted hands Raised in tremendous welcome to the dawn.

  'Now let all nations climb and crawl and pray; Though I be basest of my old red clan, They shall not scale, with cries or sacrifice, The stature of the spirit of a man.'

  THE MARINER

  The violet scent is sacred Like dreams of angels bright; The hawthorn smells of passion Told in a moonless night.

  But the smell is in my nostrils, 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.

  The heavy scent of wine-shops Floats as I pass them by, But never a cup I quaff from, And never a house have I.

  Till dropped down forty fathoms, I lie eternally; And drink from God's own goblet The green wine of the sea.

  THE TRIUMPH OF MAN

  I plod and peer ami
d mean sounds and shapes, I hunt for dusty gain and dreary praise, And slowly pass the dismal grinning days, Monkeying each other like a line of apes.

  What care? 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. High as that swinging forest stands.

  But though in pigmy wanderings dull I scour the deserts of his skull, I never find the face, eyes, teeth. Lowering or laughing underneath.

  I met my foe in an empty dell, His face in the sun was naked hell. I thought, 'One silent, bloody blow. 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. He can demand, though not deserve, Where ask he cannot, seize he can.

  But once the blood's wild wedding o'er, Were not dread his, half dark desire, To see the Christ-child in the cot, The Virgin Mary by the fire?

  MODERN ELFLAND

  I Cut a staff in a churchyard copse, I clad myself in ragged things, I set a feather in my cap That fell out of an angel's wings.

  I filled my wallet with white stones, I took three foxgloves in my hand, I slung my shoes across my back, And so I went to fairyland.

  But Lo, within that ancient place Science had reared her iron crown, And the great cloud of steam went up That telleth where she takes a town.

  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. Like sleeping dragon's sudden eyes The signals leered along the line.

  The chimneys thronging crooked or straight Were fingers signalling the sky; The dog that strayed across the street Seemed four-legged by monstrosity.

  'In vain,' I cried, 'though you too touch The new time's desecrating hand, Through all the noises of a town I hear the heart of fairyland.'

  I read the name above a door, Then through my spirit pealed and passed: 'This is the town of thine own home, And thou hast looked on it at last.'

  ETERNITIES

  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, Writes that wild number in his own strange book.

  I cannot count the sands or search the seas, Death cometh, and I leave so much untrod. Grant my immortal aureole, O my God, And I will name the leaves upon the trees.

  In heaven I shall stand on gold and glass, Still brooding earth's arithmetic to spell; Or see the fading of the fires of hell Ere I have thanked my God for all the grass.

  A CHRISTMAS CAROL

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

  The Christ-child lay on Mary's breast, His hair was like a star. (O stern and cunning are the kings, But here the true hearts are.)

  The Christ-child lay on Mary's heart, His hair was like a fire. (O weary, weary is the world, But here the world's desire.)

  The Christ-child stood at Mary's knee, His hair was like a crown, And all the flowers looked up at him. And all the stars looked down.

  ALONE

  Blessings there are of cradle and of clan, Blessings that fall of priests' and princes' hands; But never blessing full of lives and lands, Broad as the blessing of a lonely man.

  Though that old king fell from his primal throne, And ate among the cattle, yet this pride Had found him in the deepest grass, and cried An 'Ecce Homo' with the trumpets blown.

  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.

  God! shall we ever honour what we are, And see one moment ere the age expire, The vision of man shouting and erect, Whirled by the shrieking steeds of flood and fire?

  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.

  From, them to the human tree Rose a cry continually, 'Thou art still, our Father, we Fain would have thee nod. Make the skies as blood below thee, Though thou slay us, we shall know thee. Answer us, O God!

  'Show thine ancient flame and thunder, Split the stillness once asunder, Lest we whisper, lest we wonder Art thou there at all?' But I saw him there alone, Standing stiller than a stone Lest a moth should fall.

  TO THEM THAT MOURN

  (W.E.G., May 1898)

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

  If we must say, 'No more his peer Cometh; the flag is furled.' Stand not too near him, lest he hear That slander on the world.

  The good green earth he loved and trod Is still, with many a scar, Writ in the chronicles of God, A giant-bearing star.

  He fell: but Britain's banner swings Above his sunken crown. Black death shall have his toll of kings Before that cross goes down.

  Once more shall move with mighty things His house of ancient tale, Where kings whose hands were kissed of kings Went in: and came out pale.