The Wild Knight and Other Poems

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Title: The Wild Knight and Other Poems
Author: Gilbert Chesterton
Release Date: April 15, 2004 [EBook #12037]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE WILD KNIGHT
AND OTHER POEMS
BY
GILBERT CHESTERTON
1900
NOTE
My thanks are due to the Editors of the Outlook_ and the _Speaker for the kind permission they have given me to reprint a considerable number of the following poems. They have been selected and arranged rather with a view to unity of spirit than to unity of time or value; many of them being juvenile.
CONTENTS
BY THE BABE UNBORN
THE WORLD'S LOVER
THE SKELETON
A CHORD OF COLOUR
THE HAPPY MAN
THE UNPARDONABLE SIN
A NOVELTY
ULTIMATE
THE DONKEY
THE BEATIFIC VISION
THE HOPE OF THE STREETS
ECCLESIASTES
SONG OF THE CHILDREN
THE FISH
GOLD LEAVES
THOU SHALT NOT KILL A CERTAIN EVENING
A MAN AND HIS IMAGE
THE MARINER
THE TRIUMPH OF MAN
CYCLOPEAN
JOSEPH
MODERN ELFLAND
ETERNITIES
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
ALONE
KING'S CROSS STATION
THE HUMAN TREE
TO THEM THAT MOURN
THE OUTLAW
BEHIND
THE END OF FEAR
THE HOLY OF HOLIES
THE MIRROR OF MADMEN
E. C. B.
THE DESECRATERS
AN ALLIANCE
THE ANCIENT OF DAYS
THE LAST MASQUERADE
THE EARTH'S SHAME
VANITY
THE LAMP POST
THE PESSIMIST
A FAIRY TALE
A PORTRAIT
FEMINA CONTRA MUNDUM
TO A CERTAIN NATION
THE PRAISE OF DUST
THE BALLAD OF THE BATTLE OF GIBEON
'VULGARISED'
THE BALLAD OF GOD-MAKERS
AT NIGHT
THE WOODCUTTER
ART COLOURS
THE TWO WOMEN
THE WILD KNIGHT
_Another tattered rhymster in the ring,?With but the old plea to the sneering schools,?That on him too, some secret night in spring?Came the old frenzy of a hundred fools
To make some thing: the old want dark and deep,?The thirst of men, the hunger of the stars,?Since first it tinged even the Eternal's sleep,?With monstrous dreams of trees and towns and mars.
When all He made for the first time He saw,?Scattering stars as misers shake their pelf.?Then in the last strange wrath broke His own law,?And made a graven image of Himself._
BY THE BABE UNBORN
If trees were tall and grasses short,?As in some crazy tale,?If here and there a sea were blue?Beyond the breaking pale,
If a fixed fire hung in the air?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.
Let storm-clouds come: better an hour,?And leave to weep and fight,?Than all the ages I have ruled?The empires of the night.
I think that if they gave me leave?Within that world to stand,?I would be good through all the day?I spent in fairyland.
They should not hear a word from me?Of selfishness or scorn,?If only I could find the door,?If only I were born.
THE WORLD'S LOVER
My eyes are full of lonely mirth:?Reeling with want and worn with scars,?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.
Outlawed: since that great day gone by--?When before prince and pope and queen?I stood and spoke a blasphemy--?'Behold the summer leaves are green.'
They cursed me: what was that to me?Who in that summer darkness furled,?With but an owl and snail to see,?Had blessed and conquered all the world?
They bound me to the scourging-stake,?They laid their whips of thorn on me;?I wept to see the green rods break,?Though blood be beautiful to see.
Beneath the gallows' foot abhorred?The crowds cry 'Crucify!' and 'Kill!'?Higher the priests sing, 'Praise the Lord,?The warlock dies'; and higher still
Shall heaven and earth hear one cry sent?Even from the hideous gibbet height,?'Praise to the Lord Omnipotent,?The vultures have a feast to-night.'
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 good King's jest,?It was hid so carefully.
A CHORD OF COLOUR
My Lady clad herself in grey,?That caught and clung about her throat;?Then all the long grey winter day?On me a living splendour smote;?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;?Then round my spirit spread, I ween,?A splendour of forgotten grass.?Then all that dropped of stem or sod,?Hoarded as emeralds might be,?I bowed to every bush, and trod?Amid the live grass fearfully.
My Lady clad herself in blue,?Then on me, like the seer long gone,?The likeness of a sapphire grew,?The throne of him that sat thereon.?Then knew I why the Fashioner?Splashed reckless blue on sky and sea;?And