The Wild Knight and Other Poems. G. K. Chesterton

       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 gold;

      But we can tell a little

       Of the million tales he told.

      He taught them laws and watchwords,

       To preach and struggle and pray;

      But he taught us deep in the hayfield

       The games that the angels play.

      Had he stayed here for ever,

       Their world would be wise as ours—

      And the king be cutting capers,

       And the priest be picking flowers.

      But the dark day came: they gathered:

       On their faces we could see

      They had taken and slain our brother,

       And hanged him on a tree.

      THE FISH

      Dark the sea was: but I saw him,

       One great head with goggle eyes,

      Like a diabolic cherub

       Flying in those fallen skies.

      I have heard the hoarse deniers,

       I have known the wordy wars;

      I have seen a man, by shouting,

       Seek to orphan all the stars.

      I have seen a fool half-fashioned

       Borrow from the heavens a tongue,

      So to curse them more at leisure—

       —And I trod him not as dung.

      For I saw that finny goblin

       Hidden in the abyss untrod;

      And I knew there can be laughter

       On the secret face of God.

      Blow the trumpets, crown the sages,

       Bring the age by reason fed!

      (He that sitteth in the heavens,

       ‘He shall laugh’—the prophet said.)

      GOLD LEAVES

      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.

      THOU SHALT NOT KILL

      I had grown weary of him; of his breath

      And hands and features I was sick to death.

      Each day I heard the same dull voice and tread;

      I did not hate him: but I wished him dead.

      And he must with his blank face fill my life—

      Then my brain blackened; and I snatched a knife.

      But ere I struck, my soul’s grey deserts through

      A voice cried, ‘Know at least what thing you do.’

      ‘This is a common man: knowest thou, O soul,

      What this thing is? somewhere where seasons roll

      There is some living thing for whom this man

      Is as seven heavens girt into a span,

      For some one soul you take the world away—

      Now know you well your deed and purpose. Slay!’

      Then I cast down the knife upon the ground

      And saw that mean man for one moment crowned.

      I turned and laughed: for there was no one by—

      The man that I had sought to slay was I.

      A CERTAIN EVENING

      That night the whole world mingled,

       The souls were babes at play,

      And angel danced with devil.

       And God cried, ‘Holiday!’

      The sea had climbed the mountain peaks,

       And shouted to the stars

      To come to play: and down they came

       Splashing in happy wars.

      The pine grew apples for a whim,

       The cart-horse built a nest;

      The oxen flew, the flowers sang,

       The sun rose in the west.

      And ‘neath the load of many worlds,

       The lowest life God made

      Lifted his huge and heavy limbs

       And into heaven strayed.

      To where the highest life God made

       Before His presence stands;

      But God himself cried, ‘Holiday!’

       And she gave me both her hands.