THE WISE MEN

by G.K. Chesterton Step softly, under snow or rain, To find the place where men can pray; The way is all so very plain That we may lose the way. Oh, we have learnt to peer and pore On tortured puzzles from our youth, We know all the labyrinthine lore, We are the three wise men of yore, And we know all things but truth. We have gone round and round the hill And lost the wood among the trees, And learnt long names for every ill, And serve the made gods, naming still The furies the Eumenides. The gods of violence took the veil Of vision and philosophy, The Serpent that brought all men bale, He bites his own accursed tail, And calls himself Eternity. Go humbly ... it has hailed and snowed... With voices low and lanterns lit; So very simple is the road, That we may stray from it. The world grows terrible and white, And blinding white the breaking day; We walk bewildered in the light, For something is too large for sight, And something much too plain to say. The Child that was ere worlds begun (... We need but walk a little way, We need but see a latch undone...) The Child that played with moon and sun Is playing with a little hay. The house from which the heavens are fed, The old strange house that is our own, Where trick of words are never said, And Mercy is as plain as bread, And Honour is as hard as stone. Go humbly, humble are the skies, And low and large and fierce the Star; So very near the Manger lies That we may travel far. Hark! Laughter like a lion wakes To roar to the resounding plain. And the whole heaven shouts and shakes, For God Himself is born again, And we are little children walking Through the snow and rain.

A Ballade of Theatricals

By G.K. Chesterton

[From a souvenir programme produced for a fund raising benefit in London on 14th May 1912, for those affected by the sinking of the Titanic just a month previously. It includes poems and prose by many famous and lesser known authors of the day, at least one of which, (Thomas Hardy's "The Convergence of the Twain") is a first published appearance, in an early form.]

Though all the critics' canons grow Far seedier than the actors' own Although the cottage-door's too low Although the fairy's twenty stone Although, just like the telephone, She comes by wire and not by wings, Though all the mechanism's known Belive me, there are real things.

Yes, real peopleeven so Even in a theatre, truth is known, Though the agnostic will not know, And though the gnostic will not own, There is a thing called skin and bone, And many a man that struts and sings Has been as stony-broke as stone . . . Belive me, there are real things

There is an hour when all men go; An hour when man is all alone. When idle minstrels in a row Went down with all the bugles blown When brass and hymn and drum went down, Down in death's throat with thunderings Ah, though the unreal things have grown, Believe me, there are real things.

ENVOY.

Prince, though your hair is not your own And half your face held on by strings, And if you sat, you'd smash your throne Believe me, there are real things.

The Horrible History of Jones

by G.K.Chesterton

Jones had a dog; it had a chain; Not often worn, not causing pain; But, as the I.K.L. had passed Their 'Unleashed Cousins Act' at last, Inspectors took the chain away; Whereat the canine barked 'Hooray!' At which, of course, the S.P.U. (Whose Nervous Motorists' Bill was through) Were forced to give the dog in charge For being Audibly at Large. None, you will say, were now annoyed, Save, haply, Jones - the yard was void. But something being in the lease About 'alarms to aid the police,' The U.S.U. annexed the yard For having no sufficient guard. Now if there's one condition The C.C.P. are strong upon It is that every house one buys Must have a yard for exercise; So Jones, as tenant, was unfit, His state of health was proof of it. Two doctors of the T.T.U.'s Told him his legs, from long disuse, Were atrophied; and saying 'So From step to higher step we go Till everything is New and True.' They cut his legs off and withdrew. You know the E.T.S.T.'s views Are stronger than the T.T.U.'s: And soon (as one may say) took wing The Arms, though not the Man, I sing. To see him sitting limbless there Was more than the K.K. could bear. 'In mercy silence with all speed That mouth there are no hands to feed; What cruel sentimentalist, O Jones, would doom thee to exist - Clinging to selfish Selfhood yet? Weak one! Such reasoning might upset The Pump Act, and the accumulation Of all constructive legislation; Let us construct you up a bit ­­- ' The head fell off when it was hit: Then words did rise and honest doubt, And four Commissioners sat about Whether the slash that left him dead Cut off his body or his head.

An author in the Isle of Wight Observed with unconcealed delight A land of just and old renown Where Freedom slowly broadened down From Precedent to Precedent. And this, I think, was what he meant.

Note: Tennyson lived on the Isle of Wight for the last 40 years of his life. The lines "A land ... precedent' are from Tennyson's "You Ask Me, Why, Tho' Ill at Ease"

The Praise Of Dust

G. K. Chesterton

"What of vile dust?" the preacher said. Methought the whole world woke, The dead stone lived beneath my foot, And my whole body spoke.

"You, that play tyrant to the dust, And stamp its wrinkled face, This patient star that flings you not Far into homeless space.

"Come down out of your dusty shrine The living dust to see, The flowers that at your sermon's end Stand blazing silently.

"Rich white and blood-red blossom; stones, Lichens like fire encrust; A gleam of blue, a glare of gold, The vision of the dust.

"Pass them all by: till, as you come Where, at a city's edge, Under a treeI know it well Under a lattice ledge,

"The sunshine falls on one brown head. You, too, O cold of clay, Eater of stones, may haply hear The trumpets of that day

"When God to all his paladins By his own splendour swore To make a fairer face than heaven, Of dust and nothing more."