The Wild Knight and Other Poems | Page 2

Gilbert Chesterton
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 ere 'twas good enough for her,
He tried it on Eternity.
Beneath the gnarled old Knowledge-tree
Sat, like an owl, the evil
sage:
'The World's a bubble,' solemnly
He read, and turned a second
page.
'A bubble, then, old crow,' I cried,
'God keep you in your
weary wit!
'A bubble--have you ever spied
'The colours I have seen
on it?'
THE HAPPY MAN
To teach the grey earth like a child,
To bid the heavens repent,
I
only ask from Fate the gift
Of one man well content.
Him will I find: though when in vain
I search the feast and mart,

The fading flowers of liberty,
The painted masks of art.
I only find him at the last,
On one old hill where nod
Golgotha's
ghastly trinity--
Three persons and one god.
THE UNPARDONABLE SIN
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,
But
not a woman's love; for that is hers.

He sealed her heart from sage and questioner--
Yea, with seven seals,
as he has sealed the grave.
And if she give it to a drunken slave,

The Day of Judgment shall not challenge her.
Only this much: if one, deserving well,
Touching your thin young
hands and making suit,
Feel not himself a crawling thing, a brute,

Buried and bricked in a forgotten hell;
Prophet and poet be he over sod,
Prince among angels in the highest
place,
God help me, I will smite him on the face,
Before the glory
of the face of God.
A NOVELTY
Why should I care for the Ages
Because they are old and grey?
To
me, like sudden laughter,
The stars are fresh and gay;
The world is
a daring fancy,
And finished yesterday.
Why should I bow to the Ages
Because they were drear and dry?

Slow trees and ripening meadows
For me go roaring by,
A living
charge, a struggle
To escalade the sky.
The eternal suns and systems,
Solid and silent all,
To me are stars
of an instant,
Only the fires that fall
From God's good rocket, rising

On this night of carnival.
ULTIMATE
The vision of a haloed host
That weep around an empty throne;

And, aureoles dark and angels dead,
Man with his own life stands
alone.
'I am,' he says his bankrupt creed:
'I am,' and is again a clod:
The
sparrow starts, the grasses stir,
For he has said the name of God.
THE DONKEY

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,

Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born;
With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,

The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.
The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve,
scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.
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
Continue reading on your phone by scaning this QR Code

 / 18
Tip: The current page has been bookmarked automatically. If you wish to continue reading later, just open the Dertz Homepage, and click on the 'continue reading' link at the bottom of the page.