G. K. 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 night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head. I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire, And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire; But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made, Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands, The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands. His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun? The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which, But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch. God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier. My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage, Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age, But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth, And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death; For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen, Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.

I cut a staff in a churchyard copse, I clad myself in ragged things, I set a feather in my cap That fell out of an angel’s wings. I filled my wallet with white stones, I took three foxgloves in my hand, I slung my shoes across my back, And so I went to fairyland. But lo, within that ancient place Science had reared her iron crown, And the great cloud of steam went up That telleth where she takes a town. But cowled with smoke and starred with lamps, That strange land’s light was still its own; The word that witched the woods and hills Spoke in the iron and the stone. Not Nature’s hand had ever curved That mute unearthly porter’s spine. Like sleeping dragon’s sudden eyes The signals leered along the line. The chimneys thronging crooked or straight Were fingers signalling the sky; The dog that strayed across the street Seemed four-legged by monstrosity. ‘In vain,’ I cried, ‘though you too touch The new time’s desecrating hand, Through all the noises of a town I hear the heart of fairyland.’ I read the name above a door, Then through my spirit pealed and passed: ‘This is the town of thine own home, And thou hast looked on it at last.’

White founts falling in the courts of the sun, And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run; There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared, It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard, It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips, For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships. They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy, They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea, And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss, And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross, The cold queen of England is looking in the glass; The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass; From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun, And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun. Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard, Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred, Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall, The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall, The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung, That once went singing southward when all the world was young, In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid, Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade. Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far, Don John of Austria is going to the war, Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold, Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums, Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes. Don John laughing in the brave beard curled, Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world, Holding his head up for a flag of all the free. Love-light of Spain—hurrah! Death-light of Africa! Don John of Austria Is riding to the sea. Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star, (Don John of Austria is going to the war.) He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri’s knees, His turban that is woven of the sunset and the seas. He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease, And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees, And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing. Giants and the Genii, Multiplex of wing and eye, Whose strong obedience broke the sky When Solomon was king. They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn, From temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn; They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be; On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl, Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl; They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,— They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound. And he saith, “Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide, And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide, And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest, For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west. We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun, Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done, But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know The voice that shook our palaces—four hundred years ago: It is he that saith not ‘Kismet’; it is he that knows not Fate ; It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey in the gate! It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth, Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth.” For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar, (Don John of Austria is going to the war.) Sudden and still—hurrah! Bolt from Iberia! Don John of Austria Is gone by Alcalar. St. Michael’s on his mountain in the sea-roads of the north (Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.) Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift And the sea folk labour and the red sails lift. He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone; The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone; The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise, And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room, And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom, And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee, But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea. Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips, Trumpet that sayeth ha! Domino gloria! Don John of Austria Is shouting to the ships. King Philip’s in his closet with the Fleece about his neck (Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.) The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin, And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in. He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon, He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon, And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day, And death is in the phial, and the end of noble work, But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk. Don John’s hunting, and his hounds have bayed— Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid Gun upon gun, ha! ha! Gun upon gun, hurrah! Don John of Austria Has loosed the cannonade. The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke, (Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.) The hidden room in man’s house where God sits all the year, The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear. He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery; They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark, They veil the plumèd lions on the galleys of St. Mark; And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs, And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs, Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines. They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young. They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on Before the high Kings’ horses in the granite of Babylon. And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell, And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign— (But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!) Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop, Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate’s sloop, Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds, Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds, Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty. Vivat Hispania! Domino Gloria!

(SUGGESTED INSCRIPTION PROBABLY NOT SUGGESTED BY THE COMMITTEE) The hucksters haggle in the mart The cars and carts go by; Senates and schools go droning on; For dead things cannot die. A storm stooped on the place of tombs With bolts to blast and rive; But these be names of many men The lightning found alive. If usurers rule and rights decay And visions view once more Great Carthage like a golden shell Gape hollow on the shore, Still to the last of crumbling time Upon this stone be read How many men of England died To prove they were not dead.

The men that worked for England They have their graves at home: And birds and bees of England About the cross can roam. But they that fought for England, Following a falling star, Alas, alas for England They have their graves afar. And they that rule in England, In stately conclave met, Alas, alas for England They have no graves as yet.

When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood Then surely I was born. With monstrous head and sickening cry And ears like errant wings, The devil’s walking parody On all four-footed things. The tattered outlaw of the earth, Of ancient crooked will; Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb, I keep my secret still. Fools! For I also had my hour; One far fierce hour and sweet: There was a shout about my ears, And palms before my feet.

A mountainous and mystic brute No rein can curb, no arrow shoot, Upon whose doomed deformed back I sweep the planets’ scorching track. Old is the elf, and wise, men say, His hair grows green as ours grows grey; He mocks the stars with myriad hands, High as that swinging forest stands. But though in pigmy wanderings dull I scour the deserts of his skull, I never find the face, eyes, teeth, Lowering or laughing underneath. I met my foe in an empty dell, His face in the sun was naked hell. I thought, ‘One silent, bloody blow, No priest would curse, no crowd would know.’ Then cowered: a daisy, half concealed, Watched for the fame of that poor field; And in that flower and suddenly Earth opened its one eye on me.

After one moment when I bowed my head And the whole world turned over and came upright, And I came out where the old road shone white. I walked the ways and heard what all men said, Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed, Being not unlovable but strange and light; Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite But softly, as men smile about the dead The sages have a hundred maps to give That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree, They rattle reason out through many a sieve That stores the sand and lets the gold go free: And all these things are less than dust to me Because my name is Lazarus and I live.

A bird flew out at the break of day From the nest where it had curled, And ere the eve the bird had set Fear on the kings of the world. The first tree it lit upon Was green with leaves unshed; The second tree it lit upon Was red with apples red; The third tree it lit upon Was barren and was brown, Save for a dead man nailed thereon On a hill above a town. That night the kings of the earth were gay And filled the cup and can; Last night the kings of the earth were chill For dread of a naked man. ‘If he speak two more words,’ they said, ‘The slave is more than the free; If he speak three more words,’ they said, ‘The stars are under the sea.’ Said the King of the East to the King of the West, I wot his frown was set, ‘Lo, let us slay him and make him as dung, It is well that the world forget.’ Said the King of the West to the King of the East, I wot his smile was dread, ‘Nay, let us slay him and make him a god, It is well that our god be dead.’ They set the young man on a hill, They nailed him to a rod; And there in darkness and in blood They made themselves a god. And the mightiest word was left unsaid, And the world had never a mark, And the strongest man of the sons of men Went dumb into the dark. Then hymns and harps of praise they brought, Incense and gold and myrrh, And they thronged above the seraphim, The poor dead carpenter. ‘Thou art the prince of all,’ they sang, ‘Ocean and earth and air.’ Then the bird flew on to the cruel cross, And hid in the dead man’s hair. ‘Thou art the son of the world.’ they cried, ` ‘Speak if our prayers be heard.’ And the brown bird stirred in the dead man’s hair And it seemed that the dead man stirred. Then a shriek went up like the world’s last cry From all nations under heaven, And a master fell before a slave And begged to be forgiven. They cowered, for dread in his wakened eyes The ancient wrath to see; And a bird flew out of the dead Christ’s hair, And lit on a lemon tree.