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    The Ballad of St. Barbara And Other Verses
    The Ballad of St. Barbara And Other Verses
    The Ballad of St. Barbara And Other Verses
    Ebook99 pages45 minutes

    The Ballad of St. Barbara And Other Verses

    By G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton

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    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateJun 1, 2008
    The Ballad of St. Barbara And Other Verses

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      Book preview

      The Ballad of St. Barbara And Other Verses - G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton

      Project Gutenberg's The Ballad of St. Barbara, by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

      Title: The Ballad of St. Barbara

      And Other Verses

      Author: Gilbert Keith Chesterton

      Release Date: April 28, 2010 [EBook #32167]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BALLAD OF ST. BARBARA ***

      Produced by Irma Spehar, Markus Brenner and the Online

      Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This

      file was produced from images generously made available

      by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)

      The Ballad of St. Barbara

      AND OTHER VERSES

      BY

      GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON

      LONDON

      CECIL PALMER

      OAKLEY HOUSE BLOOMSBURY STREET W.C.1.

      FIRST

      EDITION

      1922

      COPYRIGHT

      TO F. C. IN MEMORIAM PALESTINE, ’19

      D o you remember one immortal

      Lost moment out of time and space,

      What time we thought, who passed the portal

      Of that divine disastrous place

      Where Life was slain and Truth was slandered

      On that one holier hill than Rome,

      How far abroad our bodies wandered

      That evening when our souls came home?

      The mystic city many-gated,

      With monstrous columns, was your own:

      Herodian stones fell down and waited

      Two thousand years to be your throne.

      In the grey rocks the burning blossom

      Glowed terrible as the sacred blood:

      It was no stranger to your bosom

      Than bluebells of an English wood.

      Do you remember a road that follows

      The way of unforgotten feet,

      Where from the waste of rocks and hollows

      Climb up the crawling crooked street

      The stages of one towering drama

      Always ahead and out of sight ...

      Do you remember Aceldama

      And the jackal barking in the night?

      Life is not void or stuff for scorners:

      We have laughed loud and kept our love,

      We have heard singers in tavern corners

      And not forgotten the birds above:

      We have known smiters and sons of thunder

      And not unworthily walked with them,

      We have grown wiser and lost not wonder;

      And we have seen Jerusalem.

      THE BALLAD OF ST. BARBARA

      (St. Barbara is the patron saint of artillery and of those in danger of sudden death.)

      W hen 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 the lost battle, to halt we knew not where

      And stilled us; and our gaping guns were dumb with our despair.

      The grey tribes flowed for ever from the infinite lifeless lands

      And a Norman to a Breton spoke, his chin upon his hands.

      "There was an end to Ilium; and an end came to Rome;

      And a man plays on a painted stage in the land that he calls home;

      Arch after arch of triumph, but floor beyond falling

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