A Ballade of Suicide -- G K Chesterton

(Poem #1892) A Ballade of Suicide The gallows in my garden, people say, Is new and neat and adequately tall. I tie the noose on in a knowing way As one that knots his necktie for a ball; But just as all the neighbors - on the wall - Are drawing a long breath to shout "Hurray!" The strangest whim has seized me . . . After all I think I will not hang myself to-day. To-morrow is the time I get my pay - My uncle's sword is hanging in the hall - I see a little cloud all pink and gray - Perhaps the rector's mother will not call - I fancy that I heard from Mr. Gall That mushrooms could be cooked another way - I never read the works of Juvenal - I think I will not hang myself to-day. The world will have another washing day; The decadents decay; the pedants pall; And H. G. Wells has found that children play, And Bernard Shaw discovered that they squall; Rationalists are growing rational - And through thick woods one finds a stream astray, So secret that the very sky seems small - I think I will not hang myself to-day. ENVOI Prince, I can hear the trumpet of Germinal, The tumbrils toiling up the terrible way; Even to-day your royal head may fall - I think I will not hang myself to-day. -- G K Chesterton

Note:
  The ballade (ba-LAHD, from the French) is a verse form consisting of three
  stanzas of 8 or 10 lines, each with the same metre, rhyme sounds and last
  line. A shorter concluding stanza (an envoi) is usually addressed to a
  prince.

It's not that great a shock to discover a Chesterton poem I haven't read
before - the man was a prolific poet (and writer) after all. Discovering
today's poem did surprise me, though - it's easily good enough, and easily
memorable enough that it should have been one of his popular poems, and
definitely one of his more anthologised ones.

One of the things that I find most noticeable about Chesterton's writing,
both his poetry and his prose, is how 'easy' it is, without any apparent
compromises. Chesterton has the rare talent of being able to write about
weighty matters, utilise a full and complex vocabulary, and nonetheless lead
the reader along effortlessly and indeed almost unnoticingly. Today's poem
illustrates this nicely - there is a surface lightness that bears the
narrative along, counterbalanced by an undercurrent of greyly philosophical
reflection that makes the superficially humorous phrasing "I think I will
not hang myself today" more sincere than flippant.

The repeated rhymes are used to very good effect, lending a cohesion to the
poem that allows the lines themselves to flit from topic to topic without
sounding disconnected. This, in turn, gives the narrator's stream of
consciousness a surprising density, so that the individual glimpses add up
very quickly to a picture of the man and his concerns. And then there's the
startlingly beautiful image in the last two lines:

  And through thick woods one finds a stream astray,
  So secret that the very sky seems small -

one that marks a sudden exaltation in tone from the banality of the earlier
verses, and prepares the way for the stern foreboding of the envoi.

Altogether, a marvellous poem and one I'm pleased to be doing my part to
spread.

martin

[Links]

Wikipedia on the ballade:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballade

And on Chesterton:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.K._Chesterton

The Deluge -- G K Chesterton

Fascinating how a poem about tea kicked off so bibulous a theme!
Speaks volumes about the Minstrels readership, I guess :) Anyway, here's the
next in the series, a guest poem sent in by Flavia :

(Poem #1746) The Deluge Though giant rains put out the sun, Here stand I for a sign. Though earth be filled with waters dark, My cup is filled with wine. Tell to the trembling priests that here Under the deluge rod, One nameless, tattered, broken man Stood up, and drank to God. Sun has been where the rain is now, Bees in the heat to hum, Haply a humming maiden came, Now let the deluge come: Brown of aureole, green of garb, Straight as a golden rod, Drink to the throne of thunder now! Drink to the wrath of God. High in the wreck I held the cup, I clutched my rusty sword, I cocked my tattered feather To the glory of the Lord. Not undone were the heaven and earth, This hollow world thrown up, Before one man had stood up straight, And drained it like a cup. -- G K Chesterton

There must be thousands and thousands of drinking songs, or songs that have
been used as such (like the Song of Songs, for instance.  Bawdy!), but no
list is *ever* complete without one by Chesterton.  You already have
archived 'the Rolling English Road', but there is also the snarky 'the
Logical Vegetarian'and 'The Song of Right and Wrong' and of course the
delightful 'Wine and Water', which like this is about the Deluge.

Most of them are from the whimsical book 'the Flying Inn', about a dastardly
plan to wipe out every public house in Great Britain(!), and how it was
foiled by a barkeep, a refined poet and a mad Irishman. And the cheese and
the barrel of rum, of course. Yay! Dulce ist decipere in loco!

Flavia

[Links]

Wikipedia page:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton

Several Chesterton works online:
  [broken link] http://www.dur.ac.uk/martin.ward/gkc/books/

The Donkey -- G K Chesterton

Guest poem submitted by VG:

(Poem #1530) The Donkey 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. -- G K Chesterton

At the age of eight, my eldest sister decided to teach me (aged six) and our
two other sisters (aged four and eight) this poem. Why she chose this poem I
don't know, nor do I remember how she went about teaching it. All I know is
that she was eminently successful, and even now we can recite the poem
perfectly. At six, I had no idea what the poem was about (though I recited
it with pride and passion, excited by the idea of flying fish and a moon of
blood), but because I learned it so early, the fierce beauty of the poem is
now enriched with nostalgia for me.

VG.

Lepanto -- G K Chesterton

Guest poem sent in by Mallika Chellappa

(Poem #1280) Lepanto 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 sunsets 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 the 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 at 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! Don John of Austria Has set his people free! Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath (Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.) And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain, Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain, And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade... (But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.) -- G K Chesterton

I mentioned "Lepanto" in my last submission and thought I would add it. [A
very welcome submission - it was just a few days ago that I was startled to
notice we had only run one Chesterton poem. - martin]

My father had this "Anthology of Modern Verse" (Methuen 1921??) which had
the most amazing poetry, all the more since most (all?) of the poets were
alive at the time the book was first published. It was a small green book,
and later he got "A New Anthology of Modern Verse" which was red.  Sadly I
lost both these books when moving house in 1981, when I had to drop
everything on hearing that my grandfather had died. The books were in a sack
along with lots of letters (each with a limerick written by my brother) and
were thrown away(?) by the moving firm which completed the job in my
absence.

It is looong, but it is a great read!

If you know anyone who needs elocution lessons, this is just the ticket -
they will enjoy it.

Mallika

Note:

  Lepanto: Italian name for Naupactos (Naupactus) a titular metropolitan see
  of ancient Epirus. [...]

  Occupied by the Turks in 1498, Lepanto is chiefly celebrated for the
  victory which the combined papal, Spanish, Venetian, and Genoese fleets,
  under Don John of Austria, gained over the Turkish fleet on 7 Oct., 1571.
        -- http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09181b.htm

The Rolling English Road -- G K Chesterton

And who better to follow Belloc than Chesterton... (thanks to Vikram Doctor
for the suggestion)

(Poem #228) The Rolling English Road 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. -- G K Chesterton

Another poet who has been conspicuous by his absence. Chesterton is slightly
better known for his prose, including many highly acclaimed works of
criticism, and the magnificent Father Brown stories, which rank among the
all time classics of detective fiction. However, his poetry is well worthy
of notice, being almost uniformly excellent (no easy feat, even for the
better poets), and almost always enjoyable. Like most of my favourite poets,
Chesterton displays a rare mastery of versification - the rhythms of speech
blending smoothly and easily into the rhythms of the poem, with not a
syllable out of place.

As for today's poem, it's probably the best known of his poems, and my
favourite for several reasons. Firstly, as I have mentioned before, I'm
predisposed to like poems about roads, and this is an excellent example,
with the easy flowing rhythm and the alliteration reinforce the image of the
rolling, rambling road. The language is an intriguing blend of the informal
- almost colloquial - and the high poetic. The mood likewise ranges from
humorous[1] to thoughtful, and in the end, serious. But it is not necessary
to analyse the poem in order to enjoy it - simply read it, not quite aloud,
but shaping your lips over the syllables, and let the verses wash over you
as you follow, with Chesterton, the rolling English road.

[1] see http://www.geocities.com/~bblair/0529.htm

Notes:

 baggonet: obs. or vulgar form of bayonet

 Kensal Green: A famous English cemetery - see
 <http://www.xs4all.nl/~androom/dead/kensal.htm>

 Interestingly, there's a pub called Paradise, or in full Paradise, by way
 of Kensal Green (that being the nearest Tube stop). Almost certainly
 post-facto, but it made me laugh.

Biography:

  Chesterton, G(ilbert) K(eith)

   b. May 29, 1874, London
   d. June 14, 1936, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, Eng. English critic
   and author of verse, essays, novels, and short stories, known also for
   his exuberant personality and rotund figure.

   Chesterton was educated at St. Paul's School and later studied art at
   the Slade School and literature at University College, London. His
   writings to 1910 were of three kinds. First, his social criticism,
   largely in his voluminous journalism, was gathered in The Defendant
   (1901), Twelve Types (1902), and Heretics (1905). In it he expressed
   strongly pro-Boer views in the South African War. Politically, he began
   as a Liberal but after a brief radical period became, with his Christian
   and medievalist friend Hilaire Belloc, a Distributist, favouring the
   distribution of land. This phase of his thinking is exemplified by What's
   Wrong with the World (1910).

   His second preoccupation was literary criticism. Robert Browning
   (1903) was followed by Charles Dickens (1906) and Appreciations and
   Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens (1911), prefaces to the
   individual novels, which are among his finest contributions to
   criticism. His George Bernard Shaw (1909) and The Victorian Age in
   Literature (1913) together with William Blake (1910) and the later
   monographs William Cobbett (1925) and Robert Louis Stevenson (1927)
   have a spontaneity that places them above the works of many academic
   critics.

   Chesterton's third major concern was theology and religious argument.
   He was converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism in 1922.
   Although he had written on Christianity earlier, as in his book
   Orthodoxy (1909), his conversion added edge to his controversial
   writing, notably The Catholic Church and Conversion (1926), his
   writings in G.K.'s Weekly, and Avowals and Denials (1934). Other works
   arising from his conversion were St. Francis of Assisi (1923), the essay
   in historical theology The Everlasting Man (1925), and St. Thomas Aquinas
   (1933).

   In his verse Chesterton was a master of ballad forms, as shown in the
   stirring "Lepanto" (1911). When it was not uproariously comic, his
   verse was frankly partisan and didactic. His essays developed his
   shrewd, paradoxical irreverence to its ultimate point of real
   seriousness. He is seen at his happiest in such essays as "On Running
   After One's Hat" (1908) and "A Defence of Nonsense" (1901), in which
   he says that nonsense and faith are "the two supreme symbolic
   assertions of truth" and "to draw out the soul of things with a
   syllogism is as impossible as to draw out Leviathan with a hook."

   Many readers value Chesterton's fiction most highly. The Napoleon of
   Notting Hill (1904), a romance of civil war in suburban London, was
   followed by the loosely knit collection of short stories, The Club of
   Queer Trades (1905), and the popular allegorical novel The Man Who Was
   Thursday (1908). But the most successful association of fiction with
   social judgment is in Chesterton's series on the priest-sleuth Father
   Brown: The Innocence of Father Brown (1911), followed by The Wisdom .
   . . (1914), The Incredulity . . . (1926), The Secret . . . (1927), and
   The Scandal of Father Brown (1935). Chesterton's friendships were with
   men as diverse as H.G. Wells, Shaw, Belloc, and Max Beerbohm. His
   Autobiography was published in 1936.

                -- EB