The Wild Knight and Other Poems. Gilbert Keith Chesterton

      The violet scent is sacred

        Like dreams of angels bright;

      The hawthorn smells of passion

        Told in a moonless night.

      But the smell is in my nostrils,

        Through blossoms red or gold,

      Of my own green flower unfading,

        A bitter smell and bold.

      The lily smells of pardon,

        The rose of mirth; but mine

      Smells shrewd of death and honour,

        And the doom of Adam's line.

      The heavy scent of wine-shops

        Floats as I pass them by,

      But never a cup I quaff from,

        And never a house have I.

      Till dropped down forty fathoms,

        I lie eternally;

      And drink from God's own goblet

        The green wine of the sea.

      I plod and peer amid mean sounds and shapes,

        I hunt for dusty gain and dreary praise,

        And slowly pass the dismal grinning days,

      Monkeying each other like a line of apes.

      What care? There was one hour amid all these

        When I had stripped off like a tawdry glove

        My starriest hopes and wants, for very love

      Of time and desolate eternities.

      Yea, for one great hour's triumph, not in me

        Nor any hope of mine did I rejoice,

        But in a meadow game of girls and boys

      Some sunset in the centuries to be.

      A mountainous and mystic brute

      No rein can curb, no arrow shoot,

      Upon whose domed deformed back

      I sweep the planets scorching track.

      Old is the elf, and wise, men say,

      His hair grows green as ours grows grey;

      He mocks the stars with myriad hands.

      High as that swinging forest stands.

      But though in pigmy wanderings dull

      I scour the deserts of his skull,

      I never find the face, eyes, teeth.

      Lowering or laughing underneath.

      I met my foe in an empty dell,

      His face in the sun was naked hell.

      I thought, 'One silent, bloody blow.

      No priest would curse, no crowd would know.'

      Then cowered: a daisy, half concealed,

      Watched for the fame of that poor field;

      And in that flower and suddenly

      Earth opened its one eye on me.

      If the stars fell; night's nameless dreams

        Of bliss and blasphemy came true,

      If skies were green and snow were gold,

        And you loved me as I love you;

      O long light hands and curled brown hair,

        And eyes where sits a naked soul;

      Dare I even then draw near and burn

        My fingers in the aureole?

      Yes, in the one wise foolish hour

        God gives this strange strength to a man.

      He can demand, though not deserve,

        Where ask he cannot, seize he can.

      But once the blood's wild wedding o'er,

        Were not dread his, half dark desire,

      To see the Christ-child in the cot,

        The Virgin Mary by the fire?

      I Cut a staff in a churchyard copse,

        I clad myself in ragged things,

      I set a feather in my cap

        That fell out of an angel's wings.

      I filled my wallet with white stones,

        I took three foxgloves in my hand,

      I slung my shoes across my back,

        And so I went to fairyland.

      But Lo, within that ancient place

        Science had reared her iron crown,

      And the great cloud of steam went up

        That telleth where she takes a town.

      But cowled with smoke and starred with lamps

        That strange land's light was still its own;

      The word that witched the woods and hills

        Spoke in the iron and the stone.

      Not Nature's hand had ever curved

        That mute unearthly porter's spine.

      Like sleeping dragon's sudden eyes

        The signals leered along the line.

      The chimneys thronging crooked or straight

        Were