Wine and Water / Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Old Noah he had an ostrich farm and fowls on the largest scale, He ate his egg with a ladle in an egg-cup big as a pail, And the soup he took was Elephant Soup and the fish he took was Whale, But they all were small to the cellar he took when he set out to sail, And Noah he often said to his wife when he sat down to dine, "I don't care where the water goes if it doesn't get into the wine."

Who Goes Home? / Gilbert Keith Chesterton

In the city set upon slime and loam They cry in their parliament "Who goes home?" And there comes no answer in arch or dome, For none in the city of graves goes home. Yet these shall perish and understand, For God has pity on this great land. Men that are men again; who goes home?

The Song of the Strange Ascetic / Gilbert Keith Chesterton

If I had been a Heathen, I'd have praised the purple vine, My slaves should dig the vineyards, And I would drink the wine; But Higgins is a Heathen, And his slaves grow lean and grey, That he may drink some tepid milk Exactly twice a day. If I had been a Heathen, I'd have crowned Neoera's curls, And filled my life with love affairs, My house with dancing girls; But Higgins is a Heathen,

The Song of the Oak / Gilbert Keith Chesterton

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 sprang 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.

The Song of Right and Wrong / Gilbert Keith Chesterton

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,

The Song of Quoodle / Gilbert Keith Chesterton

They haven't got no noses, The fallen sons of Eve; Even the smell of roses Is not what they supposes; But more than mind discloses And more than men believe. They haven't got no noses, They cannot even tell When door and darkness closes The park a Jew encloses,

The Song Against Songs / Gilbert Keith Chesterton

The song of the sorrow of Melisande is a weary song and a dreary song, The glory of Mariana's grange had got into great decay, The song of the Raven Never More has never been called a cheery song, And the brightest things in Baudelaire are anything else but gay. But who will write us a riding song,

The Song Against Grocers / Gilbert Keith Chesterton

God made the wicked Grocer For a mystery and a sign, That men might shun the awful shops And go to inns to dine; Where the bacon's on the rafter And the wine is in the wood, And God that made good laughter Has seen that they are good. The evil-hearted Grocer Would call his mother "Ma'am," And bow at her and bob at her, Her aged soul to damn, And rub his horrid hands and ask What article was next, Though =mortis in articulo= Should be her proper text.

The Saracen's Head / Gilbert Keith Chesterton

"The Saracen's Head" looks down the lane,

 Where we shall never drink wine again,

 For the wicked old women who feel well-bred

 Have turned to a tea-shop "The Saracen's Head."

 "The Saracen's Head" out of Araby came,

 King Richard riding in arms like flame,

 And where he established his folk to be fed

 He set up a spear--and the Saracen's Head.

The Rolling English Road / Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,

 The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.

 A reeling road, a rolling road,

 that rambles round the shire,

 And after him the parson ran,

 the sexton and the squire;

 A merry road, a mazy road,

 and such as we did tread 

The Road to Roundabout / Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Some say that Guy of Warwick, The man that killed the Cow And brake the mighty Boar alive Beyond the Bridge at Slough; Went up against a Loathly Worm That wasted all the Downs, And so the roads they twist and squirm (If I may be allowed the term) From the writhing of the stricken Worm That died in seven towns. I see no scientific proof That this idea is sound, And I should say they wound about To find the town of Roundabout, The merry town of Roundabout, That makes the world go round.

The Logical Vegetarian / Gilbert Keith 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 obviously to stick to wine or beer, plain vegetarian 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.

The Good Rich Man / Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Mr. Mandragon, the Millionaire, he wouldn't have wine or wife, He couldn't endure complexity: he lived the Simple Life. He ordered his lunch by megaphone in manly, simple tones, And used all his motors for canvassing voters, and twenty telephones; Besides a dandy little machine, Cunning and neat as ever was seen, With a hundred pulleys and cranks between, Made of metal and kept quite clean, To hoist him out of his healthful bed on every day of his life, And wash him and dress him and shave him and brush him --to live the Simple Life. Mr. Mandragon was most refined and quietly, neatly dressed,

The Englishman / Gilbert Keith Chesterton

St. George he was for England, And before he killed the dragon He drank a pint of English ale Out of an English flagon. For though he fast right readily In hair-shirt or in mail, It isn't safe to give him cakes Unless you give him ale. St. George he was for England, And right gallantly set free The lady left for dragon's meat And tied up to a tree; But since he stood for England And knew what England means, Unless you give him bacon You mustn't give him beans.

The Ballad of the White Horse / Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Of great limbs gone to chaos,

A great face turned to night--

Why bend above a shapeless shroud

Seeking in such archaic cloud

Sight of strong lords and light?

Where seven sunken Englands

Lie buried one by one,

Why should one idle spade, I wonder,

Shake up the dust of thanes like thunder

To smoke and choke the sun?

Pioneers, O Pioneers / Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Nebuchadnezzar the King of the Jews Suffered from new and original views, He crawled on his hands and knees, it's said, With grass in his mouth and a crown on his head. With a wowtyiddly, etc. Those in traditional paths that trod Thought the thing was a curse from God, But a Pioneer men always abuse Like Nebuchadnezzar the King of the Jews. Black Lord Foulon the Frenchman slew Thought it a Futurist thing to do. He offered them grass instead of bread.

Me Heart / Gilbert Keith Chesterton

I come from Castlepatrick, and me heart is on me sleeve, And any sword or pistol boy can hit it with me leave, 

As naked as me ancestors, as noble as me name. It shines there for an epaulette, as golden as a flame, 

But a lady stole it from me on St. Gallowglass's Eve. For I come from Castlepatrick, and me heart is on me sleeve, 

A Ballade Of An Anti-puritan / Gilbert Keith Chesterton

They spoke of Progress spiring round,

Of light and Mrs Humphrey Ward--

It is not true to say I frowned,

Or ran about the room and roared;

I might have simply sat and snored--

I rose politely in the club

And said, `I feel a little bored;

Will someone take me to a pub?' 

Lord Kitchener / Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Horatio Herbert Kitchener was Irish by birth but English by extraction, being born in County Kerry, the son of an English colonel. The fanciful might see in this first and accidental fact the presence of this simple and practical man amid the more mystical western problems and dreams which were very distant from his mind, an element which clings to all his career and gives it an unconscious poetry. He had many qualities of the epic hero, and especially this—that he was the last man in the world to be the epic poet. There is something almost provocative to superstition in the way in which he stands at every turn as the symbol of the special trials and the modern transfiguration of England; from this moment when he was born among the peasants of Ireland to the moment when he died upon the sea, seeking at the other end of the world the other great peasant civilisation of Russia. Yet at each of these symbolic moments he is, if not as unconscious as a symbol, then as silent as a symbol; he is speechless and supremely significant, like an ensign or a flag. The superficial picturesqueness of his life, at least, lies very much in this—that he was like a hero condemned by fate to act an allegory.

The Barbarism of Berlin / Gilbert Keith Chesterton

INTRODUCTION.

THE FACTS OF THE CASE.

Unless we are all mad, there is at the back of the most bewildering business a story: and if we are all mad, there is no such thing as madness. If I set a house on fire, it is quite true that I may illuminate many other people's weaknesses as well as my own. It may be that the master of the house was burned because he was drunk: it may be that the mistress of the house was burned because she was stingy, and perished arguing about the expense of a fire-escape. It is, nevertheless, broadly true that they both were burned because I set fire to their house. That is the story of the thing. The mere facts of the story about the present European conflagration are quite as easy to tell.