To Belloc

For every tiny town or

God made the stars especially;

Babies look up with owlish

And see them tangled in a tree;

You saw a moon from Sussex Downs,

A Sussex moon, untravelled still,

I saw a moon that was the town's,

The largest lamp on Campden Hill.

Yea;

Heaven is everywhere at

The big blue cap that always fits,

And so it is (be calm; they

To goal at last, my wandering wits),

So is it with the heroic thing;

This shall not end for the world's

And though the sullen engines swing,

Be you not much afraid, my friend.

This did not end by Nelson's

Where an immortal England sits—Nor where your tall young men in

Drank death like wine at Austerlitz.

And when the pedants bade us

What cold mechanic

Must come; our souls said in the dark,'Belike; but there are likelier things.'Likelier across these flats

These sulky levels smooth and

The drums shall crash a waltz of

And Death shall dance with Liberty;

Likelier the barricades shall

Slaughter below and smoke above,

And death and hate and hell

That men have found a thing to love.

Far from your sunny uplands setI saw the dream; the streets I

The lit straight streets shot out and

The starry streets that point to God.

This legend of an epic hourA child I dreamed, and dream it still,

Under the great grey

That strikes the stars on Campden

Hilaire

Belloc