The Wild Knight and Other Poems. Гилберт Кит Честертон

      The Fish

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      Dark the sea was: but I saw him,

       One great head with goggle eyes,

       Like a diabolic cherub

       Flying in those fallen skies.

       I have heard the hoarse deniers,

       I have known the wordy wars;

       I have seen a man, by shouting,

       Seek to orphan all the stars.

       I have seen a fool half-fashioned

       Borrow from the heavens a tongue,

       So to curse them more at leisure -

       - And I trod him not as dung.

       For I saw that finny goblin

       Hidden in the abyss untrod;

       And I knew there can be laughter

       On the secret face of God.

       Blow the trumpets, crown the sages,

       Bring the age by reason fed!

       (He that sitteth in the heavens,

       'He shall laugh' - the prophet said.)

      Gold Leaves

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      Lo! I am come to autumn,

       When all the leaves are gold;

       Grey hairs and golden leaves cry out

       The year and I are old.

       In youth I sought the prince of men,

       Captain in cosmic wars,

       Our Titan, even the weeds would show

       Defiant, to the stars.

       But now a great thing in the street

       Seems any human nod,

       Where shift in strange democracy

       The million masks of God.

       In youth I sought the golden flower

       Hidden in wood or wold,

       But I am come to autumn,

       When all the leaves are gold.

      Thou Shalt Not Kill a Certain Evening

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      I had grown weary of him; of his breath

       And hands and features I was sick to death.

       Each day I heard the same dull voice and tread;

       I did not hate him: but I wished him dead.

       And he must with his blank face fill my life -

       Then my brain blackened; and I snatched a knife.

       But ere I struck, my soul's grey deserts through

       A voice cried, 'Know at least what thing you do.'

       'This is a common man: knowest thou, O soul,

       What this thing is? somewhere where seasons roll

       There is some living thing for whom this man

       Is as seven heavens girt into a span,

       For some one soul you take the world away -

       Now know you well your deed and purpose. Slay!'

       Then I cast down the knife upon the ground

       And saw that mean man for one moment crowned.

       I turned and laughed: for there was no one by -

       The man that I had sought to slay was I.