THE LOGICAL VEGETARIAN

G.K.Chesterton

"Why shouldn't I have a purely vegetarian drink? Why shouldn't I take vegetables in their highest form, so to speak? The modest vegetarians ought to stick to wine or beer, plain vegetable drinks, instead of filling their goblets with the blood of bulls and elephants, as all conventional meat-eaters do, I suppose"Dalroy.

You will find me drinking rum, Like a sailor in a slum, You will find me drinking beer like a Bavarian You will find me drinking gin In the lowest kind of inn Because I am a rigid Vegetarian.

So I cleared the inn of wine, And I tried to climb the sign, And I tried to hail the constable as "Marion." But he said I couldn't speak, And he bowled me to the Beak Because I was a Happy Vegetarian.

Oh, I know a Doctor Gluck, And his nose it had a hook, And his attitudes were anything but Aryan; So I gave him all the pork That I had, upon a fork Because I am myself a Vegetarian.

I am silent in the Club, I am silent in the pub., I am silent on a bally peak in Darien; For I stuff away for life Shoving peas in with a knife, Because I am a rigid Vegetarian.

No more the milk of cows Shall pollute my private house Than the milk of the wild mares of the Barbarian I will stick to port and sherry, For they are so very, very, So very, very, very, Vegetarian.

Gold Leaves

by G.K.Chesterton

Lo! I am come to autumn, When all the leaves are gold; Grey hairs and golden leaves cry out The year and I are old.

In youth I sought the prince of men, Captain in cosmic wars, Our Titan, even the weeds would show Defiant, to the stars.

But now a great thing in the street Seems any human nod, Where shift in strange democracy The million masks of God.

In youth I sought the golden flower Hidden in wood or wold, But I am come to autumn, When all the leaves are gold.

The Last Hero

G.K. Chesterton

The wind blew out from Bergen from the dawning to the day, There was a wreck of trees and fall of towers a score of miles away, And drifted like a livid leaf I go before its tide, Spewed out of house and stable, beggared of flag and bride. The heavens are bowed about my head, shouting like seraph wars, With rains that might put out the sun and clean the sky of stars, Rains like the fall of ruined seas from secret worlds above, The roaring of the rains of God none but the lonely love. Feast in my hall, O foemen, and eat and drink and drain, You never loved the sun in heaven as I have loved the rain.

The chance of battle changes so may all battle be; I stole my lady bride from them, they stole her back from me. I rent her from her red-roofed hall, I rode and saw arise, More lovely than the living flowers the hatred in her eyes. She never loved me, never bent, never was less divine; The sunset never loved me, the wind was never mine. Was it all nothing that she stood imperial in duresse? Silence itself made softer with the sweeping of her dress. O you who drain the cup of life, O you who wear the crown, You never loved a woman's smile as I have loved her frown.

The wind blew out from Bergen to the dawning of the day, They ride and run with fifty spears to break and bar my way, I shall not die alone, alone, but kin to all the powers, As merry as the ancient sun and fighting like the flowers. How white their steel, how bright their eyes! I love each laughing knave, Cry high and bid him welcome to the banquet of the brave. Yea, I will bless them as they bend and love them where they lie, When on their skulls the sword I swing falls shattering from the sky. The hour when death is like a light and blood is like a rose, You never loved your friends, my friends, as I shall love my foes.

Know you what earth shall lose to-night, what rich uncounted loans, What heavy gold of tales untold you bury with my bones? My loves in deep dim meadows, my ships that rode at ease, Ruffling the purple plumage of strange and secret seas. To see this fair earth as it is to me alone was given, The blow that breaks my brow to-night shall break the dome of heaven. The skies I saw, the trees I saw after no eyes shall see, To-night I die the death of God; the stars shall die with me; One sound shall sunder all the spears and break the trumpet's breath: You never laughed in all your life as I shall laugh in death.

(Written in 1901)

Note: this poem has been set to music by Michael Longcor. The Song of Right and Wrong

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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 to drink, Thank him for his kind attentions, Go and pour them down the sink.

Tea is like the East he grows in, A great yellow Mandarin With urbanity of manner And unconsciousness of sin; All the women, like a harem, At his pig-tail troop along; And, like all the East he grows in, He is Poison when he's strong.

Tea, although an Oriental, Is a gentleman at least; Cocoa is a cad and coward, Cocoa is a vulgar beast, Cocoa is a dull, disloyal, Lying, crawling cad and clown, And may very well be grateful To the fool that takes him down.

As for all the windy waters, They were rained like tempests down When good drink had been dishonoured By the tipplers of the town; When red wine had brought red ruin And the death-dance of our times, Heaven sent us Soda Water As a torment for our crimes. - G.K. Chesterton

Eternities

G.K.Chesterton

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.