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.
poem by G.K. Chesterton from The Wild Knight and Other Poems (1900)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Desecraters
Witness all: that unrepenting,
Feathers flying, music high,
I go down to death unshaken
By your mean philosophy.
For your wages, take my body,
That at least to you I leave;
Set the sulky plumes upon it,
Bid the grinning mummers grieve.
Stand in silence: steep your raiment
In the night that hath no star;
Don the mortal dress of devils,
Blacker than their spirits are.
Since ye may not, of your mercy,
Ere I lie on such a hearse,
Hurl me to the living jackals
God hath built for sepulchres.
poem by G.K. Chesterton from The Wild Knight and Other Poems (1900)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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.
poem by G.K. Chesterton from The Wild Knight and Other Poems (1900)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Outlaw
Priest, is any song-bird stricken?
Is one leaf less on the tree?
Is this wine less red and royal
That the hangman waits for me?
He upon your cross that hangeth,
It is writ of priestly pen,
On the night they built his gibbet,
Drank red wine among his men.
Quaff, like a brave man, as he did,
Wine and death as heaven pours--
This is my fate: O ye rulers,
O ye pontiffs, what is yours?
To wait trembling, lest yon loathly
Gallows-shape whereon I die,
In strange temples yet unbuilded,
Blaze upon an altar high.
poem by G.K. Chesterton from The Wild Knight and Other Poems (1900)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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.
poem by G.K. Chesterton from The Wild Knight and Other Poems (1900)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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.
poem by G.K. Chesterton
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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.
poem by G.K. Chesterton from The Wild Knight and Other Poems (1900)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Ancient of Days
A child sits in a sunny place,
Too happy for a smile,
And plays through one long holiday
With balls to roll and pile;
A painted wind-mill by his side
Runs like a merry tune,
But the sails are the four great winds of heaven,
And the balls are the sun and moon.
A staring doll's-house shows to him
Green floors and starry rafter,
And many-coloured graven dolls
Live for his lonely laughter.
The dolls have crowns and aureoles,
Helmets and horns and wings.
For they are the saints and seraphim,
The prophets and the kings.
poem by G.K. Chesterton from The Wild Knight and Other Poems (1900)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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?'
poem by G.K. Chesterton from The Wild Knight and Other Poems (1900)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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.
poem by G.K. Chesterton from The Wild Knight and Other Poems (1900)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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