(W.E.G., May 1898)
Lift up your heads: in life, in death,
God knoweth his head was high.
Quit we the coward’s broken breath
Who watched a strong man die.
If we must say, ‘No more his peer
Cometh; the flag is furled.’
Stand not too near him, lest he hear
That slander on the world.
The good green earth he loved and trod
Is still, with many a scar,
Writ in the chronicles of God,
A giant-bearing star.
He fell: but Britain’s banner swings
Above his sunken crown.
Black death shall have his toll of kings
Before that cross goes down.
Once more shall move with mighty things
His house of ancient tale,
Where kings whose hands were kissed of kings
Went in: and came out pale.
O young ones of a darker day,
In art’s wan colours clad,
Whose very love and hate are grey–
Whose very sin is sad.
Pass on: one agony long-drawn
Was merrier than your mirth,
When hand-in-hand came death and dawn,
And spring was on the earth.
(Gilbert Keith Chesterton)
More Poetry from Gilbert Keith Chesterton:
Gilbert Keith Chesterton Poems based on Topics: God, World, Death & Dying, Kings & Queens, Sadness, Life, Sin, Hatred, Art, Spring, Cowardice- The Wild Knight (Gilbert Keith Chesterton Poems)
- The Ballad of St. Barbara (Gilbert Keith Chesterton Poems)
- Lepanto (Gilbert Keith Chesterton Poems)
- The Ballad Of The Battle Of Gibeon (Gilbert Keith Chesterton Poems)
- A Wedding In War-Time (Gilbert Keith Chesterton Poems)
- On the Disastrous Spread of Aestheticism in all Classes (Gilbert Keith Chesterton Poems)