G K Chesterton
The Skeleton
Chattering finch and water-fly Are not merrier than I; Here among the flowers I lie Laughing everlastingly. No; I may not tell the best; Surely, friends, I might have guessed Death was but the
Who Goes Home?
In the city set upon slime and loam They cry in their parliament ‘Who goes home?’ And there comes no answer in arch or dome, For none in the city of graves goes home.
A Little Litany
When God turned back eternity and was young, Ancient of Days, grown little for your mirth (As under the low arch the land is bright) Peered through you, gate of heaven and saw the
Wine and Water
Old Noah he had an ostrich farm and fowls on the largest scale, He ate his egg with a ladle in a egg-cup big as a pail, And the soup he took was Elephant
The Last Hero
The wind blew out from Bergen, from the dawning to the day There was a wreck of trees, a fall of towers, a score of miles away And drifted like a livid leaf I
A Prayer in Darkness
This much, O heaven-if I should brood or rave, Pity me not; but let the world be fed, Yea, in my madness if I strike me dead, Heed you the grass that grows upon
A Cider Song
To J. S. M. The wine they drink in Paradise They make in Haute Lorraine; God brought it burning from the sod To be a sign and signal rod That they that drink the
The Song of Right and Wrong
Feast on wine or fast on water And your honour shall stand sure, God Almighty’s son and daughter He the valiant, she the pure; If an angel out of heaven Brings you other things
The Higher Unity
The Rev. Isaiah Bunter has disappeared into the interior of the Solomon Islands, and it is feared that he may have been devoured by the natives, as there has been a considerable revival of
The Ballad of the Anti-Puritan
They spoke of Progress spiring round, Of light and Mrs Humphrey Ward It is not true to say I frowned, Or ran about the room and roared; I might have simply sat and snored
The Old Song
A livid sky on London And like the iron steeds that rear A shock of engines halted And I knew the end was near: And something said that far away, over the hills and
The Shakespeare Memorial
Lord Lilac thought it rather rotten That Shakespeare should be quite forgotten, And therefore got on a Committee With several chaps out of the City, And Shorter and Sir Herbert Tree, Lord Rothschild and
An Answer to Frances Cornford
Why do you rush through the fields in trains, Guessing so much and so much. Why do you flash through the flowery meads, Fat-head poet that nobody reads; And why do you know such
To Belloc
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,
Antichrist, or the Reunion of Christendom: An Ode
Are they clinging to their crosses, F. E. Smith, Where the Breton boat-fleet tosses, Are they, Smith? Do they, fasting, trembling, bleeding, Wait the news from this our city? Groaning “That’s the Second Reading!”