The Project Gutenberg eBook ofPoemsThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: PoemsAuthor: G. K. ChestertonRelease date: February 5, 2010 [eBook #31184]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Marc D'Hooghe*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: PoemsAuthor: G. K. ChestertonRelease date: February 5, 2010 [eBook #31184]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Marc D'Hooghe
Title: Poems
Author: G. K. Chesterton
Author: G. K. Chesterton
Release date: February 5, 2010 [eBook #31184]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Marc D'Hooghe
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS ***
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
The Napoleon of Notting Hill: A Romance. With illustrations by Graham Robertson.
Heretics.
Orthodoxy.
All Things Considered.
George Bernard Shaw. An illustrated biography.
The Ball and the Cross.
The Ballad of the White Horse.
The Innocence of Father Brown. Illustrated.
The Wisdom of Father Brown.
Manalive.
The Flying Inn.
JOHN LANE COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
ITHREE DEDICATIONSTO EDMUND CLERIHEW BENTLEYTO HILAIRE BELLOCTO M. E. W.IIWAR POEMSLEPANTOTHE MARCH OF THE BLACK MOUNTAIN 1913BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERSTHE WIFE OF FLANDERSTHE CRUSADER RETURNS FROM CAPTIVITYIIILOVE POEMSGLENCOELOVE'S TRAPPISTCONFESSIONALMUSICTHE DELUGETHE STRANGE MUSICTHE GREAT MINIMUMTHE MORTAL ANSWERSA MARRIAGE SONGBAY COMBEIVRELIGIOUS POEMSTHE WISE MENTHE HOUSE OF CHRISTMASA SONG OF GIFTS TO GODTHE KINGDOM OF HEAVENA HYMN FOR THE CHURCH MILITANTTHE BEATIFIC VISIONTHE TRUCE OF CHRISTMASA HYMNA CHRISTMAS SONG FOR THREE GUILDSTHE NATIVITYA CHILD OF THE SNOWSA WORDVRHYMES FOR THE TIMESANTICHRIST, OR THE REUNION OF CHRISTENDOM: AN ODETHE REVOLUTIONIST, OR LINES TO A STATESMANTHE SHAKESPEARE MEMORIALTHE HORRIBLE HISTORY OF JONESTHE NEW FREETHINKERIN MEMORIAM P.D.SONNET WITH THE COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASONA SONG OF SWORDSA SONG OF DEFEATSONNETAFRICATHE DEAD HEROAN ELECTION ECHO 1906THE SONG OF THE WHEELSTHE SECRET PEOPLEVIMISCELLANEOUS POEMSLOSTBALLAD OF THE SUNTRANSLATION FROM DU BELLAYTHE HIGHER UNITYTHE EARTH'S VIGILON RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATIONWHEN I CAME BACK TO FLEET STREETA CIDER SONGTHE LAST HEROVIIBALLADESBALLADE D'UNE GRANDE DAMEA BALLADE OF AN ANTI-PURITANA BALLADE OF A BOOK-REVIEWERA BALLADE OF SUICIDEA BALLADE OF THE FIRST RAIN
THE DEDICATION OFTHE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY
A cloud was on the mind of men, and wailing went the weather,Yea, a sick cloud upon the soul when we were boys together.Science announced nonentity and art admired decay;The world was old and ended: but you and I were gay.Round us in antic order their crippled vices came—Lust that had lost its laughter, fear that had lost its shame.Like the white lock of Whistler, that lit our aimless gloom,Men showed their own white feather as proudly as a plume.Life was a fly that faded, and death a drone that stung;The world was very old indeed when you and I were young.They twisted even decent sin to shapes not to be named:Men were ashamed of honour; but we were not ashamed.Weak if we were and foolish, not thus we failed, not thus;When that black Baal blocked the heavens he had no hymns from us.Children we were—our forts of sand were even as weak as we,High as they went we piled them up to break that bitter sea.Fools as we were in motley, all jangling and absurd,When all church bells were silent our cap and bells were heard.Not all unhelped we held the fort, our tiny flags unfurled;Some giants laboured in that cloud to lift it from the world.I find again the book we found, I feel the hour that flingsFar out of fish-shaped Paumanok some cry of cleaner things;And the Green Carnation withered, as in forest fires that pass,Roared in the wind of all the world ten million leaves of grass;Or sane and sweet and sudden as a bird sings in the rainTruth out of Tusitala spoke and pleasure out of pain.Yea, cool and clear and sudden as a bird sings in the grey,Dunedin to Samoa spoke, and darkness unto day,But we were young; we lived to see God break their bitter charms,God and the good Republic come riding back in arms:We have seen the city of Mansoul, even as it rocked, relieved—Blessedare they who did not see, but being blind, believed.This is a tale of those old fears, even of those emptied hells,And none but you shall understand the true thing that it tells—Of what colossal gods of shame could cow men and yet crash,Of what huge devils hid the stars, yet fell at a pistol flash.The doubts that were so plain to chase, so dreadful to withstand—Oh, who shall understand but you; yea, who shall understand?The doubts that drove us through the night as we two talked amain,And day had broken on the streets e'er it broke upon the brain.Between us, by the peace of God, such truth can now be told;Yea, there is strength in striking root, and good in growing old.We have found common things at last, and marriage and a creed.And I may safely write it now, and you may safely read.
THE DEDICATION OFTHE NAPOLEON OF NOTTING HILL
For every tiny town or placeGod made the stars especially;Babies look up with owlish faceAnd see them tangled in a tree:You saw a moon from Sussex Downs,A Sussex moon, untravelled still,I saw a moon that was the town's,The largest lamp on Campden Hill.Yea, Heaven is everywhere at home.The big blue cap that always fits,And so it is (be calm; they comeTo goal at last, my wandering wits),So it is with the heroic thing;This shall not end for the world's end,And though the sullen engines swing,Be you not much afraid, my friend.This did not end by Nelson's urnWhere an immortal England sits—Nor where your tall young men in turnDrank death like wine at Austerlitz.And when the pedants bade us markWhat cold mechanic happeningsMust come; our souls said in the dark,"Belike; but there are likelier things."Likelier across these flats afar,These sulky levels smooth and free,The drums shall crash a waltz of warAnd Death shall dance with Liberty;Likelier the barricades shall blareSlaughter below and smoke above,And death and hate and hell declareThat men have found a thing to love.Far from your sunny uplands setI saw the dream; the streets I trod,The lit straight streets shot out and metThe starry streets that point to God;The legend of an epic hourA child I dreamed, and dream it still,Under the great grey water-towerThat strikes the stars on Campden Hill
Words, for alas my trade is words, a barren burst of rhyme,Rubbed by a hundred rhymesters, battered a thousand times,Take them, you, that smile on strings, those nobler sounds than mine,The words that never lie, or brag, or flatter, or malign.I give a hand to my lady, another to my friend,To whom you too have given a hand; and so before the endWe four may pray, for all the years, whatever suns beset,The sole two prayers worth praying—to live and not forget.The pale leaf falls in pallor, but the green leaf turns to gold;We that have found it good to be young shall find it good to be old;Life that bringeth the marriage bell, the cradle and the grave,Life that is mean to the mean of heart, and only brave to the brave.In the calm of the last white winter, when all the past is ours,Old tears are frozen as jewels, old storms frosted as flowers.Dear Lady, may we meet again, stand up again, we four,Beneath the burden of the years, and praise the earth once more.
White founts falling in the Courts of the sun,And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,For the inmost sea of all the earth is shake with his ships.They have dared the white republics up the cape of Italy,They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross.The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,That once went singing southward when all the world was young.In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,Don John of Austria is going to the war,Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts coldIn the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.Don John laughing in the brave beard curled.Spuming of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.Love-light of Spain—hurrah!Death-light of Africa!Don John of AustriaIs riding to the sea.Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri's knees,His turban that is woven of the sunsets and the seas.He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees,And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bringBlack Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.Giants and the Genii,Multiplex of wing and eye,Whose strong obedience broke the skyWhen Solomon was king.They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,From temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the seaWhere fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be;On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,—They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.And he saith, "Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide,And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done,But a noise is in 'the mountains, in the mountains, and I knowThe voice that shook our palaces—four hundred years ago:It is he that saith not 'Kismet'; it is he that knows not Fate;It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey in the gate!It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth."For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)Sudden and still—hurrah!Bolt from Iberia!Don John of AustriaIs gone by Alcalar.St. Michael's on his Mountain in the sea-roads of the north(Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.)Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shiftAnd the sea-folk labour and the red sails lift.He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone;The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone;The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyesAnd dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dustyAnd Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.Don John calling through the blast and the eclipseCrying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips,Trumpet that sayeth ha!Domino gloria!Don John of AustriaIs shouting to the ships.King Philip's in his closet with the Fleece about his neck(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.)The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles veryAnd his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and greyLike plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day.And death is in the phial and the end of noble work,But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.Don John's hunting, and his hounds have bayed—Boomsaway past Italy the rumour of his raid.Gun upon gun, ha! ha!Gun upon gun, hurrah!Don John of AustriaHas loosed the cannonade.The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.)The hidden room in man's house where God sits all the year,The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight seaThe crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,They veil the plumed lions on the galleys of St. Mark;And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repinesLike a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.They are lost like slaves that swat, and in the skies of morning hungThe stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing onBefore the high Kings' horses in the granite of Babylon.And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hellWhere a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell,And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign(ButDon John of Austria has burst the battle-line!)Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate's sloop,Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sexWhite for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.Vivat Hispania!Domino Gloria!Don John of AustriaHas set his people free!Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain,And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade....(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)
What will there be to rememberOf us in the days to be?Whose faith was a trodden emberAnd even our doubt not free;Parliaments built of paper,And the soft swords of goldThat twist like a waxen taperIn the weak aggressor's hold;A hush around Hunger, slayingA city of serfs unfed;What shall we leave for a sayingTo praise us when we are dead?But men shall remember the MountainThat broke its forest chains,And men shall remember the MountainWhen it arches against the plains:And christen their children from itAnd season and ship and street,When the Mountain came to MahometAnd looked small before his feet.His head was as high as the crescentOf the moon that seemed his crown,And on glory of past and presentThe light of his eyes looked down;One hand went out to the morningOver Brahmin and Buddhist slain,And one to the West in scorningTo point at the scars of Spain;One foot on the hills for wardenBy the little Mountain trod;And one was in a gardenAnd stood on the grave of God.But men shall remember the Mountain,Though it fall down like a tree,They shall see the sign of the MountainFaith cast into the sea;Though the crooked swords overcome itAnd the Crooked Moon ride free,When the Mountain comes to MahometIt has more life than he.But what will there be to rememberOr what will there be to see—Though our towns through a long NovemberAbide to the end and be?Strength of slave and mechanicWhose iron is ruled by gold,Peace of immortal panic,Love that is hate grown cold—Are these a bribe or a warningThat we turn not to the sun,Nor look on the lands of morningWhere deeds at last are done?Where men shall remember the MountainWhen truth forgets the plain—And walk in the way of the MountainThat did not fail in vain;Death and eclipse and comet,Thunder and seals that rend:When the Mountain came to Mahomet;Because it was the end.
Of old with a divided heartI saw my people's pride expand,Since a man's soul is torn apartBy mother earth and fatherland.I knew, through many a tangled tale,Glory and truth not one but two:King, Constable, and AmirailTook me like trumpets: but I knewA blacker thing than blood's own dyeWeighed down great Hawkins on the sea;And Nelson turned his blindest eyeOn Naples and on liberty.Therefore to you my thanks, O throne,O thousandfold and frozen folk,For whose cold frenzies all your ownThe Battle of the Rivers broke;Who have no faith a man could mourn.Nor freedom any man desires;But in a new clean light of scornClose up my quarrel with my sires;Who bring my English heart to me,Who mend me like a broken toy;Till I can see you fight and flee,And laugh as if I were a boy.
Low and brown barns thatched and repatched and tatteredWhere I had seven sons until to-day,A little hill of hay your spur has scattered....This is not Paris. You have lost the way.You, staring at your sword to find it brittle,Surprised at the surprise that was your plan,Who shaking and breaking barriers not a littleFind never more the death-door of Sedan.Must I for more than carnage call you claimant,Paying you a penny for each son you slay?Man, the whole globe in gold were no repaymentFor whatyouhave lost. And how shall I repay?What is the price of that red spark that caught meFrom a kind farm that never had a name?What is the price of that dead man they brought me?For other dead men do not look the same.How should I pay for one poor graven steepleWhereon you shattered what you shall not know,How should I pay you, miserable people?How should I pay you everything you owe?34Unhappy, can I give you back your honour?Though I forgave would any man forget?While all the great green land has trampled on herThe treason and terror of the night we met.Not any more in vengeance or in pardonAn old wife bargains for a bean that's hers.You have no word to break: no heart to harden.Ride on and prosper. You have lost your spurs.
I have come forth alive from the land of purple and poison and glamour,Where the charm is strong as the torture, being chosen to change the mind;Torture of wordless dance and wineless feast without clamour,Palace hidden in palace, garden with garden behind;Women veiled in the sun, or bare as brass in the shadows,And the endless eyeless patterns where each thing seems an eye....And my stride is on Caesar's sand where it slides to the English meadows,To the last low woods of Sussex and the road that goes to Rye.In the cool and careless woods the eyes of the eunuchs burned not,But the wild hawk went before me, being free to return or roam,The hills had broad unconscious backs; and the tree-tops turned not,And the huts were heedless of me: and I knew I was at home.And I saw my lady afar and her holy freedom upon her,A head, without veil, averted, and not to be turned with charms,And I heard above bannerets blown the intolerant trumpets of honour,That usher with iron laughter the coming of Christian arms.My shield hangs stainless still; but I shall not go where they praise it,A sword is still at my side, but I shall not ride with the King.Only to walk and to walk and to stun my soul and amaze it,A day with the stone and the sparrow and every marvellous thing.I have trod the curves of the Crescent, in the maze of them that adore it,Curved around doorless chambers and unbeholden abodes,But I walk in the maze no more; on the sign of the cross I swore it,The wild white cross of freedom, the sign of the white cross-roads.And the land shall leave me or take, and the Woman take me or leave me,There shall be no more Night, or nightmares seen in a glass;But Life shall hold me alive, and Death shall never deceive meAs long as I walk in England in the lanes that let me pass.
The star-crowned cliffs seem hinged upon the sky,The clouds are floating rags across them curled,They open to us like the gates of GodCloven in the last great wall of all the world.I looked, and saw the valley of my soulWhere naked crests fight to achieve the skies,Where no grain grows nor wine, no fruitful thing,Only big words and starry blasphemies.But you have clothed with mercy like a mossThe barren violence of its primal wars,Sterile although they be and void of rule,You know my shapeless crags have Wed the stars.How shall I thank you, O courageous heart.That of this wasteful world you had no fear;But bade it blossom in clear faith and sentYour fair flower-feeding rivers: even as hereThe peat burns brimming from their cups of stoneGlow brown and blood-red down the vast declineAs if Christ stood on yonder clouded peakAnd turned its thousand waters into wine.
There is a place where lute and lyre are broken.Where scrolls are torn and on a wild wind go,Where tablets stand wiped naked for a token,Where laurels wither and the daisies grow.Lo: I too join the brotherhood of silence,I am Love's Trappist and you ask in vain,For man through Love's gate, even as through Death's gate,Goeth alone and comes not back again.Yet here I pause, look back across the threshold.Cry to my brethren, though the world be old,Prophets and sages, questioners and doubters,O world, old world, the best hath ne'er been told!
Now that I kneel at the throne, O Queen,Pity and pardon me.Much have I striven to sing the same,Brother of beast and tree;Yet when the stars catch me aloneNever a linnet sings—And the blood of a man is a bitter voiceAnd cries for foolish things.Not for me be the vaunt of woe;Was not I from a boyVowed with the helmet and spear and spurTo the blood-red banner of joy?A man may sing his psalms to a stone,Pour his blood for a weed,But the tears of a man are a sudden thing,And come not of his creed.Nay, but the earth is kind to me,Though I cry for a Star,Leaves and grasses, feather and flower,Cover the foolish scar,Prophets and saints and seraphimLighten the load with song,And the heart of a man is a heavy loadFor a man to bear along.
Sounding brass and tinkling cymbal,He that made me sealed my ears,And the pomp of gorgeous noises,Waves of triumph, waves of tears,Thundered empty round and past me,Shattered, lost for ever more,Ancient gold of pride and passion,Wrecked like treasure on a shore.But I saw her cheek and foreheadChange, as at a spoken word,And I saw her head upliftedLike a lily to the Lord.Nought is lost, but all transmuted,Ears are sealed, yet eyes have seen;Saw her smiles (O soul be worthy!),Saw her tears (O heart be clean!).
Though giant rains put out the sun,Here stand I for a sign.Though Earth be filled with waters dark,My cup is filled with wine.Tell to the trembling priests that hereUnder the deluge rod,One nameless, tattered, broken manStood up and drank to God.Sun has been where the rain is now,Bees in the heat to hum,Haply a humming maiden came,Now let the Deluge come:Brown of aureole, green of garb,Straight as a golden rod,Drink to the throne of thunder now!Drink to the wrath of God.High in the wreck I held the cup,I clutched my rusty sword,I cocked my tattered featherTo the glory of the Lord.Not undone were the heaven and earth,This hollow world thrown up,Before one man had stood up straight!And drained it like a cup.
Other loves may sink and settle, other loves may loose and slack,But I wander like a minstrel with a harp upon his back,Though the harp be on my bosom, though I finger and I fret,Still, my hope is all before me: for I cannot play it yet.In your strings is hid a music that no hand hath ere let fall,In your soul is sealed a pleasure that you have not known at all;Pleasure subtle as your spirit, strange and slender as your frame,Fiercer than the pain that folds you, softer than your sorrow's name.Not as mine, my soul's anointed, not as mine the rude and lightEasy mirth of many faces, swaggering pride of song and fight;Something stranger, something sweeter, something waiting you afar,Secret as your stricken senses, magic as your sorrows are.But on this, God's harp supernal, stretched but to be stricken once.Hoary Time is a beginner, Life a bungler, Death a dunce.But I will not fear to match them—no, by God, I will not fear,I will learn you, I will play you and the stars stand still to hear.
It is something to have wept as we have wept,It is something to have done as we have done,It is something to have watched when all men slept,And seen the stars which never see the sun.It is something to have smelt the mystic rose,Although it break and leave the thorny rods,It is something to have hungered once as thoseMust hunger who have ate the bread of gods.To have seen you and your unforgotten face,Brave as a blast of trumpets for the fray.Pure as white lilies in a watery space,It were something, though you went from me to-day.To have known the things that from the weak are furled,Perilous ancient passions, strange and high;It is something to be wiser than the world,It is something to be older than the sky.In a time of sceptic moths and cynic rusts,And fatted lives that of their sweetness tire,In a world of flying loves and fading lusts,It is something to be sure of a desire.Lo, blessed are our ears for they have heard;Yea, blessed are our eyes for they have seen:Let thunder break on man and beast and birdAnd the lightning. It is something to have been.
.................COME AWAY—WITH THE FAIRIES, HAND IN HAND,FOR THE WORLD IS MORE FULL OF WEEPINGTHAN YOU CAN UNDERSTAND.W.B. Yeats.From the Wood of the Old Wives' FablesThey glittered out of the grey,And with all the Armies of Elf-landI strove like a beast at bay;With only a right arm wearied,Only a red sword worn,And the pride of the House of AdamThat holdeth the stars in scorn.For they came with chains of flowersAnd lilies lances free,There in the quiet greenwoodTo take my grief from me.And I said, "Now all is shakenWhen heavily hangs the brow,When the hope of the years is takenThe last star sunken. Now—"Hear, you chattering cricket,Hear, you spawn of the sod,The strange strong cry in the darknessOf one man praising God,"That out of the night and nothingWith travail of birth he cameTo stand one hour in the sunlightOnly to say her name."Falls through her hair the sunshineIn showers; it touches, see,Her high bright cheeks in turning;Ah, Elfin Company,"The world is hot and cruel,We are weary of heart and hand.But the world is more full of gloryThan you can understand."
Why should we reck of hours that rendWhile we two ride together?The heavens rent from end to endWould be but windy weather,The strong stars shaken down in spateWould be a shower of spring,And we should list the trump of fateAnd hear a linnet sing.We break the line with stroke and luck,The arrows run like rain,If you be struck, or I be struck,There's one to strike again.If you befriend, or I befriend,The strength is in us twain,And good things end and bad things end,And you and I remain.Why should we reck of ill or wellWhile we two ride together?The fires that over Sodom fellWould be but sultry weather.Beyond all ends to all men givenOur race is far and fell,We shall but wash our feet in heaven,And warm our hands in hell.Battles unborn and vast shall viewOur faltered standards stream,New friends shall come and frenzies new.New troubles toil and teem;New friends shall pass and still renewOne truth that does not seem,That I am I, and you are you,And Death a morning dream.Why should we reck of scorn or praiseWhile we two ride together?The icy air of godless daysShall be but wintry weather.If hell were highest, if the heavenWere blue with devils blue,I should have guessed that all was even,If I had dreamed of you.Little I reck of empty prides,Of creeds more cold than clay;To nobler ends and longer rides,My lady rides to-day.To swing our swords and take our sidesIn that all-ending frayWhen stars fall down and darkness hides,When God shall turn to bay.Why should we reck of grin and groanWhile we two ride together?The triple thunders of the throneWould be but stormy weather.For us the last great fight shall roar,Upon the ultimate plains,And we shall turn and tell once moreOur love in English lanes.
With leaves below and leaves above,And groping under tree and tree,I found the home of my true love,Who is a wandering home for me.Who, lost in ruined worlds aloof,Bore the dread dove wings like a roof;Who, past the last lost stars of spaceCarried the fire-light on her face.Who, passing as in idle hours,Tamed the wild weeds to garden flowers;Stroked the strange whirlwind's whirring wings,And made the comets homely things.Where she went by upon her wayThe dark was dearer than the day;Where she paused in heaven or hell,The whole world's tale had ended well.With leaves below and leaves above.And groping under tree and tree,I found the home of my true love,Who is a wandering home for me.Where she was flung, above, beneath,By the rude dance of life and death,Grow she at Gotham—die at Rome,Between the pine trees is her home.In some strange town, some silver morn,She may have wandered to be born;Stopped at some motley crowd impressed,And called them kinsfolk for a jest.If we again En goodness thrive,And the dead saints become alive,Then pedants bald and parchments brownMay claim her blood for London town.But leaves below and leaves above.And groping under tree and tree,I found the home of my true love,Who is a wandering home for me.The great gravestone she may pass by,And without noticing, may die;The streets of silver Heaven may tread,With her grey awful eyes unfed.The city of great peace in painMay pass, until she find againThis little house of holm and firGod built before the stars for her.Here in the fallen leaves is furledHer secret centre of the world.We sit and feel in dusk and dunThe stars swing round us like a sun.For leaves below and leaves above.And groping under tree and tree,I found the home of my true love.Who is a wandering home for me.
Step softly, under snow or rain,To find the place where men can pray;The way is all so very plainThat we may lose the way.Oh, we have learnt to peer and poreOn tortured puzzles from our youth,We know all labyrinthine lore,We are the three wise mert of yore,And we know all things but the truth.We have gone round and round the hill,And lost the wood among the trees,And learnt long names for every ill,And served the mad gods, naming stillThe Furies the Eumenides.The gods of violence took the veilOf vision and philosophy,The Serpent that brought all men bale,He bites his own accursed tail,And calls himself Eternity.Go humbly ... it has hailed and snowed ...With voices low and lanterns lit;So very simple is the road,That we may stray from it.The world grows terrible and white,And blinding white the breaking day;We walk bewildered in the light,For something is too large for sight,And something much too plain to say.The Child that was ere worlds begun(... We need but walk a little way,We need but see a latch undone,...)The Child that played with moon and sunIs playing with a little hay.The house from which the heavens are fed,The old strange house that is our own,Where tricks of words are never said.And Mercy is as plain as bread,And Honour is as hard as stone.Go humbly; humble are the skies,And low and large and fierce the Star;So very near the Manger liesThat we may travel far.Hark! Laughter like a lion wakesTo roar to the resounding plain,And the whole heaven shouts and shakes,For God Himself is born again,And we are little children walkingThrough the snow and rain.
There fared a mother driven forthOut of an inn to roam;In the place where she was homelessAll men are at home.The crazy stable close at hand,With shaking timber and shifting sand,Grew a stronger thing to abide and standThan the square stones of Rome.For men are homesick in their homes,And strangers under the sun,And they lay their heads in a foreign landWhenever the day is done.Here we have battle and blazing eyes,And chance and honour and high surprise,Where the yule tale was begun.A Child in a foul stable,Where the beasts feed and foam;Only where He was homelessAre you and I at home;We have hands that fashion and heads thatBut our hearts we lost—how long ago!In a place no chart nor ship can showUnder the sky's dome.This world is wild as an old wives' tale,And strange the plain things are,The earth is enough and the air is enoughFor our wonder and our war;But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swingsAnd our peace is put in impossible thingsWhere clashed and thundered unthinkable wingsRound an incredible star.To an open house in the eveningHome shall men come,To an older place than EdenAnd a taller town than Rome.To the end of the way of the wandering star,To the things that cannot be and that are,To the place where God was homelessAnd all men are at home.
When the first Christmas presents came, the straw where Christ was rolledSmelt sweeter than their frankincense, burnt brighter than their gold,And a wise man said, "We will not give; the thanks would be but cold.""Nay," said the next, "To all new gifts, to this gift or another,Bends the high gratitude of God; even as He now, my brother,Who had a Father for all time, yet thanks Him for a Mother."Yet scarce for Him this yellow stone or prickly-smells and sparse.Who holds the gold heart of the sun that fed these timber bars,Nor any scentless lily lives for One that smells the stars."Then spake the third of the Wise Men; the wisest of the three:"We may not with the widest lives enlarge His liberty,Whose wings are wider than the world. It is not He, but we."We say not He has more to gain, but we have more to lose.Less gold shall go astray, we say, less gold, if thus we choose,Go to make harlots of the Greeks and hucksters of the Jews."Less clouds before colossal feet redden in the under-light,To the blind gods from Babylon less incense burn to-night,To the high beasts of Babylon, whose mouths make mock of right."Babe of the thousand birthdays, we that are young yet grey,White with the centuries, still can find no better thing to say,We that with sects and whims and wars have wasted Christmas Day.Light Thou Thy censer to Thyself, for all our fires are dim,Stamp Thou Thine image on our coin, for Caesar's face grows dim,And a dumb devil of pride and greed has taken hold of him.We bring Thee back great Christendom, churches and towns and towers.And if our hands are glad, O God, to cast them down like flowers,'Tis not that they enrich Thine hands, but they are saved from ours.
Said the Lord God, "Build a house,Build it in the gorge of death,Found it in the throats of hell.Where the lost sea muttereth,Fires and whirlwinds, build it well."Laboured sternly flame and wind,But a little, and they cry,"Lord, we doubt of this Thy will,We are blind and murmur why,"And the winds are murmuring still.Said the Lord God, "Build a house,Cleave its treasure from the earth,With the jarring powers of hellStrive with formless might and mirth,Tribes and war-men, build it well."Then the raw red sons of menBrake the soil, and lopped the wood,But a little and they shrill,"Lord, we cannot view Thy good,"And the wild men clamour still.Said the Lord God, "Build a house,Smoke and iron, spark and steam,Speak and vote and buy and sell;Let a new world throb and stream,Seers and makers, build it well."Strove the cunning men and strong,But a little and they cry,"Lord, mayhap we are but clay,And we cannot know the why,"And the wise men doubt to-day.Yet though worn and deaf and blind,Force and savage, king and seerLabour still, they know not why;At the dim foundation here,Knead and plough and think and ply.Till at last, mayhap, hereon,Fused of passion and accord,Love its crown and peace its stayRise the city of the LordThat we darkly build to-day.
Great God, that bowest sky and star,Bow down our towering thoughts to thee,And grant us in a faltering warThe firm feet of humility.Lord, we that snatch the swords of flame,Lord, we that cry about Thy car.We too are weak with pride and shame,We too are as our foemen are.Yea, we are mad as they are mad,Yea, we are blind as they are blind,Yea, we are very sick and sadWho bring good news to all mankind.The dreadful joy Thy Son has sentIs heavier than any care;We find, as Cain his punishment,Our pardon more than we can bear.Lord, when we cry Thee far and nearAnd thunder through all lands unknownThe gospel into every ear,Lord, let us not forget our own.Cleanse us from ire of creed or class,The anger of the idle tings;Sow in our souls, like living grass,The laughter of all lowly things.
Then Bernard smiled at me, that I should gazeBut I had gazed already; caught the view,Faced the unfathomable ray of raysWhich to itself and by itself is true.Then was my vision mightier than man's speech;Speech snapt before it like a flying spell;And memory and all that time can teachBefore that splendid outrage failed and fell.As when one dreameth and remembereth notWaking, what were his pleasures or his pains,With every feature of the dream forgot,The printed passion of the dream remains:—Even such am I; within whose thoughts residesNo picture of that sight nor any partNor any memory: in whom abidesOnly a happiness within the heart,A secret happiness that soaks the heartAs hills are soaked by slow unsealing snow,Or secret as that wind without a chartWhereon did the wild leaves of Sibyl go.O light uplifted from all mortal knowing,Send back a little of that glimpse of thee.That of its glory I may kindle glowingOne tiny spark for all men yet to be.
Passionate peace is in the sky—And in the snow in silver sealedThe beasts are perfect in the field,And men seem men so suddenly—(But take ten swords and ten times tenAnd blow the bugle in praising men;For we are for all men under the sun,And they are against us every one;And misers haggle and madmen clutch,And there is peril in praising much.And we have the terrible tongues uncurledThat praise the world to the sons of the world.)The idle humble hill and woodAre bowed upon the sacred birth,And for one little hour the earthIs lazy with the love of good—(But ready are you, and ready am I,If the battle blow and the guns go by;For we are for all men under the sun,And they are against us every one;And the men that hate herd all together,To pride and gold, and the great white featherAnd the thing is graven in star and stoneThat the men who love are all alone.)Hunger is hard and time is tough,But bless the beggars and kiss the kings,For hope has broken the heart of things,And nothing was ever praised enough.(But bold the shield for a sudden swingAnd point the sword when you praise a thing,For we are for all men under the sun,And they are against us every one;And mime and merchant, thane and thrallHate us because we love them all;Only till Christmastide go byPassionate peace is in the sky.)
O God of earth and altar,Bow down and hear our cryOur earthly rulers falter,Our people drift and die;The walls of gold entomb us,The swords of scorn divide,Take not thy thunder from us,But take away our pride.From all that terror teaches,From lies of tongue and pen,From all the easy speechesThat comfort cruel men,From sale and profanationOf honour and the sword,From sleep and from damnation,Deliver us, good Lord!Tie in a living tetherThe prince and priest and thrall,Bind all our lives together,Smite us and save us all;In ire and exultationAflame with faith, and free,Lift up a living nation,A single sword to thee.
TO BE SUNG A LONG TIME AGO—OR HENCE
THE CARPENTERS
St. Joseph to the Carpenters said on a Christmas Day:"The master shall have patience and the prentice shall obey;And your word unto your women shall be nowise hard or wild:For the sake of me, your master, who have worshipped Wife and Child.But softly you shall frame the fence, and softly carve the door,And softly plane the table—as to spread it for the poor,And all your thoughts be soft and white as the wood of the white tree.But if they tear the Charter, Jet the tocsin speak for me!Let the wooden sign above your shop be prouder to be scarredThan the lion-shield of Lancelot that hung at Joyous Garde."THE SHOEMAKERSSt. Crispin to the shoemakers said on a Christmastide:"Who fashions at another's feet will get no good of pride.They were bleeding on the Mountain, the feet that brought good news,The latchet of whose shoes we were not worthy to unloose.See that your feet offend not, nor lightly lift your head,Tread softly on the sunlit roads the bright dust of the dead.Let your own feet be shod with peace; be lowly all your lives.But if they touch the Charter, ye shall nail it with your knives.And the bill-blades of the commons drive in all as dense arrayAs once a crash of arrows came, upon St. Crispin's Day."THE PAINTERSSt. Luke unto the painters on Christmas Day he said:"See that the robes are white you dare to dip in gold and red;For only gold the kings can give, and only blood the saints;And his high task grows perilous that mixes them in paints.Keep you the ancient order; follow the men that knewThe labyrinth of black and whits, the maze of green and blue;Paint mighty things, paint paltry things, paint silly things or sweet.But if men break the Charter, you may slay them in the street.And if you paint one post for them, then ... but you know it well,You paint a harlot's face to drag all heroes down to hell."ALL TOGETHERAlmighty God to all mankind on Christmas Day said He:"I rent you from the old red hills and, rending, made you free.There was charter, there was challenge; in a blast of breath I gave;You can be all things other; you cannot be a slave.You shall be tired and tolerant of fancies as they fade,But if men doubt the Charter, ye shall call on the Crusade—Trumpet and torch and catapult, cannon and bow and blade,Because it was My challenge to all the things I made."
The thatch on the roof was as golden,Though dusty the straw was and old,The wind had a peal as of trumpets,Though blowing and barren and cold,The mother's hair was a gloryThough loosened and torn,For under the eaves in the gloamingA child was born.Have a myriad children been quickened.Have a myriad children grown old,Grown gross and unloved and embittered,Grown cunning and savage and cold?God abides In a terrible patience,Unangered, unworn,And again for the child that was squanderedA child is born.What know we of æons behind us,Dim dynasties lost long ago,Huge empires, like dreams unremembered,Huge cities for ages laid low?This at least—that with blight and with blessingWith flower and with thorn,Love was there, and his cry was among them,"A child is born."Though the darkness be noisy with systems,Dark fancies that fret and disprove,Still the plumes stir around us, above usThe wings of the shadow of love:Oh! princes and priests, have ye seen itGrow pale through your scorn.Huge dawns sleep before us, deep changes,A child is born.And the rafters of toil still are gildedWith the dawn of the star of the heart,And the wise men draw near in the twilight,Who are weary of learning and art,And the face of the tyrant is darkened.His spirit is torn,For a new King is enthroned; yea, the sternest,A child is born.And the mother still joys for the whisperedFirst stir of unspeakable things,Still feels that high moment unfurlingRed glory of Gabriel's wings.Still the babe of an hour is a masterWhom angels adorn,Emmanuel, prophet, anointed,A child is born.And thou, that art still in thy cradle,The sun being crown for thy brow.Make answer, our flesh, make an answer,Say, whence art thou come—who art thou?Art thou come back on earth for our teachingTo train or to warn—?Hush—how may we know?—knowing onlyA child is born.
There is heard a hymn when the panes dimAnd never before or again,When the nights are strong with a darkness long,And the dark is alive with rain.Never we know but in sleet and in snow,The place where the great fires are,That the midst of the earth is a raging mirthAnd the heart of the earth a star.And at night we win to the ancient innWhere the child in the frost is furled,We follow the feet where all souls meetAt the inn at the end of the world.The gods lie dead where the leaves lie red,For the flame of the sun is flown.The gods lie cold where the leaves lie gold.And a Child comes forth alone.
A word came forth in Galilee, a word like to a star;It climbed and rang and blessed and burnt wherever brave hearts are;A word of sudden secret hope, of trial and increaseOf wrath and pity fused in fire, and passion kissing peace.A star that o'er the citied world beckoned, a sword of flame;A star with myriad thunders tongued: a mighty word there came.The wedge's dart passed into it, the groan of timberwains,The ringing of the rivet nails, the shrieking of the planes;The hammering on the roofs at morn, the busy workshop roar;The hiss of shavings drifted deep along the windy floor;The heat-browned toiler's crooning song, the hum of human worth—Mingled of all the noise of crafts, the ringing word went forth.The splash of nets passed into it, the grind of sand and shell,The boat-hook's clash, the boat-oars' jar, the cries to buy and sell,The flapping of the landed shoals, the canvas crackling free,And through all varied notes and cries, the roaring of the sea,The noise of little lives and brave, of needy lives and high;In gathering all the throes of earth, the living word went by.Earth's giant sins bowed down to it, in Empire's huge eclipse,When darkness sat above the thrones, seven thunders on her lips,The woe of cities entered it, the clang of idols' falls,The scream of filthy Caesars stabbed high in their brazen halls,The dim hoarse Hoods of naked men, the worldrealms snapping girth,The trumpets of Apocalypse, the darkness of the earth:The wrath that brake the eternal lamp and hid the eternal hill,A world's destruction loading, the word went onward still—The blaze of creeds passed into it, the hiss of horrid fires,The headlong spear, the scarlet cross, the hair-shirt and the briars,The cloistered brethren's thunderous chaunt, the errant champion's song,The shifting of the crowns and thrones, the tangle of the strong.The shattering fall of crest and crown and shield and cross and cope,The tearing of the gauds of time, the blight of prince and pope,The reign of ragged millions leagued to wrench a loaded debt,Loud with the many throated roar, the word went forward yet.The song of wheels passed into it, the roaring and the smokeThe riddle of the want and wage, the fogs that burn and choke.The breaking of the girths of gold, the needs that creep and swell.The strengthening hope, the dazing light, the deafening evangel,Through kingdoms dead and empires damned, through changes without cease,With earthquake, chaos, born and fed, rose,—and the word was "Peace."