On the other hand, poetry is a painstaking art, and Chesterton does not like to take pains. He is too indolent or too indifferent to hunt for the best possible word or rime. Consequently we find in his verse many a perfect line, rarely a perfect stanza, and never a perfect poem. But scattered all through his verse, even in the most nonsensical, we happen upon curious cadences that linger in the memory like the chant of some strange ritual. His ballads abound in unconventional rhythms that haunt one like those of Lanier's "Ballad of the Trees and the Master."
Although Chesterton often seems to disregard the canons of versification from carelessness or caprice, yet at other times he takes delight in subjecting himself to the most rigid of models, as, for instance, the old French ballade, which, he says, is "the easiest because it is the most restricted." He shows us how he constructs one in "The Ballade of a Strange Town."[9] The strange town into which he was shunted by the accident of taking the wrong tramcar one rainy day while "fooling about Flanders" was Lierre, an unknown and uninteresting way station then, but now one of the famous places of world history, for it stood for days the shock of the German attack on Antwerp. While waiting for the next car to take him away Chesterton scribbled on the back of an envelope with an aniline pencil a poem which begins in nonsense but ends with as good an expression of his creed as he has given anywhere:
Happy is he and more than wise
Who sees with wondering eyes and clean
This world through all the gray disguise
Of sleep and custom in between.
Yes: we may pass the heavenly screen,
But shall we know when we are there?
Who know not what these dead stones mean,
The lovely city of Lierre.
Chesterton is so fond of the ballade that I must quote one specimen complete.[10] For the benefit of those who have taken no interest in versification I may call attention to the technical difficulties of the form of the ballade that he has chosen. It consists of three octaves and a quatrain all ending in the same refrain and using only two rimes. The first rime is used in the first and third lines of the first quatrain and in the second and fourth of the second quatrain. The second rime is used in the second and fourth lines of the first quatrain and in the first and third of the second quatrain. The closing quatrain or l'envoi is in the ballade addressed to a prince or other royal personage. Since Chesterton hates princes his apostrophe to the prince in this ballade is not in the usual sycophantic style.
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 grey—
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.
L'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.
Those who assisted—with more or less enthusiasm—in the Shakespeare Tercentenary celebration will appreciate Chesterton's verses about a similar commemoration decreed by the calendar.
THE SHAKESPEARE MEMORIAL
Lord Lilac thought it rather rotten
That Shakespeare should be quite forgotten,
And therefore got on a Committee
With several chaps out of the city,
And Shorter and Sir Herbert Tree,
Lord Rothschild and Lord Rosebery,
And F. C. G. and Comyns Carr,
Two dukes and a dramatic star,
Also a clergyman now dead;
And while the vain world careless sped
Unheeding the heroic name—
The souls most fed with Shakespeare's flame
Still sat unconquered in a ring,
Remembering him like anything.
Lord Lilac did not long remain,
Lord Lilac did not come again,
He softly lit a cigarette
And sought some other social set
Where, in some other knots or rings,
People were doing cultured things,
—Miss Zwilt's Humane Vivarium
—The little men who paint on gum
—The exquisite Gorilla Girl....
He sometimes in the giddy whirl
(Not being really bad at heart),
Remembered Shakespeare with a start—
But not with that grand constancy
Of Clement Shorter, Herbert Tree,
Lord Rosebery, and Comyns Carr
And all the other names there are;
Who stuck like limpets to the spot,
Lest they forgot, lest they forgot.
Lord Lilac was of slighter stuff;
Lord Lilac had had quite enough.[11]
Chesterton's poetic versatility range may be inferred from the fact that he has written a drinking song that is used as a whisky advertisement and a devotional song that has been incorporated into the hymn book. The former may be found in "The Flying Inn", the latter in the "English Hymnal", also in "Poems." The hymn is as follows, omitting, as the preachers always say,[12] the third stanza. Sing it to the tune of "Webb."
O God of earth and altar,
Bow down and hear our cry,
Our earthly rulers falter,
Our people drift and die.
The walls of gold entomb us,
The swords of scorn divide,
Take not thy thunder from us
But take away our pride.
From all that terror teaches,
From lies of tongue and pen,
From all the easy speeches
That comfort cruel men,
From sale and profanation
Of honor and the sword,
From sleep and from damnation
Deliver us, good Lord!
But I know of some people—and more sensible people than you would suppose—who say that they like "Quoodle" the best of Chesterton's poetry. Since there is no accounting for taste and some of my readers may have taste, I must also quote this: