Gilbert Keith Chesterton

To J
S
M
The wine they drink in Paradise They make in Haute Lorraine;

A Book of verses underneath the bough,  Provided that the verses do not scan,
A loaf of bread, a jug of wine and Thou,  Short-haired, all angles, looking like a man
But let the wine be unfermented,
Pale,  Of chemicals compounded,

The Devil is a gentleman, and asks you down to
At his little place at What'sitsname (it isn't far away)
They say the sport is splendid; there is always something new,
And fairy scenes, and fearful feats that none but he can do;

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

The men that worked for
They have their graves at home:
And bees and birds of
About the cross can roam

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,

Low and brown barns, thatched and repatched and tattered,
Where I had seven sons until to-day,
A little hill of hay your spur has scattered

John Grubby who was short and stout And troubled with religious doubt,
Refused about the age of three To sit upon the curate's knee; (For so the eternal strife must rage Between the spirit of the age And Dogma, which, as is well known,
D...

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,

When fishes flew and forests
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood,
Then surely I was born;

When the long grey lines came flooding upon Paris in the plain,
We stood and drank of the last free air we never could taste again;
They had led us back from a lost battle, to halt we knew not where,
And stilled us; and our gaping g...

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 unlovabl...