Ultimate

The vision of a haloed host
That weep around an empty throne;
And, aureoles dark and angels dead,
Man with his own life stands alone.

'I am,' he says his bankrupt creed:
'I am,' and is again a clod:
The sparrow starts, the grasses stir,
For he has said the name of God.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, commonly known as G.K. Chesterton, was an influential English writer, poet, and philosopher. Renowned for his distinctive writing style, lively wit, and thought-provoking essays, Chesterton made significant contributions to literature. He authored numerous books, including the widely acclaimed "Father Brown" series of detective stories. Chesterton's work continues to captivate and inspire readers with its depth, humor, and intellectual richness.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Femina Contra Mundum

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Simple Poetry

For Four Guilds: I. The Glass-Stainers

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Simple Poetry

To Captain Fryatt

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Simple Poetry

The Triumph Of Man

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Alone

Blessings there are of cradle and of clan,
Blessings that fall of priests' and princes' hands;
But never blessing full of lives and lands,
Broad as the blessing of a lonely man.

Though that old king fell from his primal throne,
And ate among the cattle, yet this pride
Had found him in the deepest grass, and cried
An 'Ecce Homo' with the trumpets blown.

And no mad tyrant, with almighty ban,
Who in strong madness dreams himself divine,
But hears through fumes of flattery and of wine
The thunder of this blessing name him man.

Let all earth rot past saints' and seraphs' plea,
Yet shall a Voice cry through its last lost war,
'This is the world, this red wreck of a star,
That a man blessed beneath an alder-tree.'

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

The Wild Knight

The wasting thistle whitens on my crest,
The barren grasses blow upon my spear,
A green, pale pennon: blazon of wild faith
And love of fruitless things: yea, of my love,
Among the golden loves of all the knights,
Alone: most hopeless, sweet, and blasphemous,
The love of God:
I hear the crumbling creeds
Like cliffs washed down by water, change, and pass;
I hear a noise of words, age after age,
A new cold wind that blows across the plains,
And all the shrines stand empty; and to me
All these are nothing: priests and schools may doubt
Who never have believed; but I have loved.
Ah friends, I know it passing well, the love
Wherewith I love; it shall not bring to me
Return or hire or any pleasant thing--
Ay, I have tried it: Ay, I know its roots.
Earthquak...

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Eternities

I cannot count the pebbles in the brook.
Well hath He spoken: 'Swear not by thy head,
Thou knowest not the hairs,' though He, we read,
Writes that wild number in his own strange book.

I cannot count the sands or search the seas,
Death cometh, and I leave so much untrod.
Grant my immortal aureole, O my God,
And I will name the leaves upon the trees.

In heaven I shall stand on gold and glass,
Still brooding earth's arithmetic to spell;
Or see the fading of the fires of hell
Ere I have thanked my God for all the grass.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

The Beatific Vision

Through what fierce incarnations, furled
In fire and darkness, did I go,
Ere I was worthy in the world
To see a dandelion grow?

Well, if in any woes or wars
I bought my naked right to be,
Grew worthy of the grass, nor gave
The wren, my brother, shame for me.

But what shall God not ask of him
In the last time when all is told,
Who saw her stand beside the hearth,
The firelight garbing her in gold?

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

The Human Tree

Many have Earth's lovers been,
Tried in seas and wars, I ween;
Yet the mightiest have I seen:
Yea, the best saw I.
One that in a field alone
Stood up stiller than a stone
Lest a moth should fly.

Birds had nested in his hair,
On his shoon were mosses rare.
Insect empires flourished there,
Worms in ancient wars;
But his eyes burn like a glass,
Hearing a great sea of grass
Roar towards the stars.

From, them to the human tree
Rose a cry continually,
'Thou art still, our Father, we
Fain would have thee nod.
Make the skies as blood below thee,
Though thou slay us, we shall know thee.
Answer us, O God!

'Show thine ancient flame and thunder,
Split the stillness once asunder,
Lest we whisper, lest we wonder
Art ...

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

A Man And His Image

All day the nations climb and crawl and pray
In one long pilgrimage to one white shrine,
Where sleeps a saint whose pardon, like his peace,
Is wide as death, as common, as divine.

His statue in an aureole fills the shrine,
The reckless nightingale, the roaming fawn,
Share the broad blessing of his lifted hands,
Under the canopy, above the lawn.

But one strange night, a night of gale and flood,
A sound came louder than the wild wind's tone;
The grave-gates shook and opened: and one stood
Blue in the moonlight, rotten to the bone.

Then on the statue, graven with holy smiles,
There came another smile--tremendous--one
Of an Egyptian god. 'Why should you rise?
'Do I not guard your secret from the sun?

The nations come; they kneel among the f...

Gilbert Keith Chesterton