The House of Christmas

By: G. K. Chesterton

There fared a mother driven forth Out of an inn to roam; In the place where she was homeless All men are at home. The crazy stable close at hand, With shaking timber and shifting sand, Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes, And strangers under the sun, And they lay on their heads in a foreign land Whenever the day is done. Here we have battle and blazing eyes, And chance and honour and high surprise, But our homes are under miraculous skies Where the yule tale was begun.

A Child in a foul stable, Where the beasts feed and foam; Only where He was homeless Are you and I at home; We have hands that fashion and heads that know, But our hearts we lost - how long ago! In a place no chart nor ship can show Under 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 enough For our wonder and our war; But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings And our peace is put in impossible things Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening Home shall men come, To an older place than Eden And 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 homeless And all men are at home.THE NEW OMAR

A Book of verses underneath the bough, Provided that the verses do not scan, A loaf of bread, a jug of wine and Thou, Short-haired, all angles, looking like a man.

But let the wine be unfermented, Pale, Of chemicals compounded, God knows how This were indeed the Prophet's Paradise, O Paradise were Wilderness enow.

The Song of the Oak

The Druids waved their golden knives And danced around the Oak WHen they had sacrificed a man; But though the learned search and scan No single modern person can Entirely see the joke. But though they cut the throats of men They cut not down the tree, And from the blood the saplings spring Of oak-woods yet to be. But Ivywood, Lord Ivywood, He rots the tree as ivy would, He clings and crawls as ivy would About the sacred tree.

King Charles he fled from Worcester fight And hid him in the Oak; In convent schools no man of tact Would trace and praise his every act, Or argue that he was in fact A strict and sainted bloke. But not by him the sacred woods Have lost their fancies free, And though he was extremely big He did not break the tree. But Ivywood, Lord Ivywood, He breaks the tree as ivy would, And eats the woods as ivy would Between us and the sea.

Great Collingwood walked down the glade And flung the acorns free, That oaks might still be in the grove As oaken as the beams above, When the great Lover sailors love Was kissed by Death at aea. But though for him the oak-trees fell To build the oaken ships, The woodman worshipped what he smote And honoured even the chips. But Ivywood, Lord Ivywood, He hates the tree as ivy would, As the dragon of the ivy would That has us in his grips.

G. K. Chesterton