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Quotes from Poems — G. K. Chesterton

1874–1936 England

← All quotes by G. K. Chesterton

28 quotes

Let the thunder break on man and beast and bird
And the lightning. It is something to have been.

Poems (1917)

Our chiefs said 'Done,' and I did not deem it;
Our seers said 'Peace,' and it was not peace;
Earth will grow worse till men redeem it,
And wars more evil, ere all wars cease.

Poems (1917)

Strong gongs groaning as the drums beat far.

Poems (1917)

We know each other, these slaves and we.

Poems (1917)

The gallows in my garden, people say,
Is new and neat and adequately tall.

Poems (1917)

Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath,
(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)

Poems (1917)

Don John of Austria is going to the war.

Poems (1917)

Are they clinging to their crosses?

Poems (1917)

It is all as of old, the empty clangour,
The nothing scrawled on a five-foot page,
The huckster who, mocking holy anger,
Painfully paints his face with rage.

Poems (1917)

White founts falling in the courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run.

Poems (1917)

The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;
The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass.

Poems (1917)

It is he that saith not ‘Kismet’; it is he that knows not fate;
It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey in the gate!

Poems (1917)

In a time of sceptic moths and cynic rusts,
And fattened lives that of their sweetness tire
In a world of flying loves and fading lusts,
It is something to be sure of a desire.

Poems (1917)

I’ll read "Jack Redskin on the Quest"
And feed my brain with better things.

Poems (1917)

Talk about the pews and steeples
And the cash that goes therewith!
But the souls of Christian peoples...
Chuck it, Smith!

Poems (1917)

To have known the things that from the weak are furled,
Perilous ancient passions, strange and high;
It is something to be wiser than the world,
It is something to be older than the sky.

Poems (1917)

But for the Virtuous Things you do,
The Righteous Work, the Public Care,
It shall not be forgiven you.

Poems (1917)

And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade....
(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)

Poems (1917)

Nelson turned his blindest eye
On Naples and on liberty.

Poems (1917)

For we that fight till the world is free,
We are not easy in victory:
We have known each other too long, my brother,
And fought each other, the world and we.

Poems (1917)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: G. K. Chesterton (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.