Thursday, June 23, 2011

Twenty Followers!

Thanks to everyone who reads and welcome to new readers!

To celebrate, here is a Chesterton poem whose sentiments I heartily applaud. "Will someone take me to a pub?" is a refrain it would be hard to beat. Although I'm not sure what GKC would make of pubs today, where there is nearly always a TV intruding upon proceedings, and where the music gets louder and louder until by ten o' clock you have to shout into someone's ear to make yourself heard. Have we given up on the art of conversation entirely?

A Ballade of An Anti-Puritan

They spoke of Progress spiring roud,
Of Light and Mrs. Humphry Ward—
It is not true to say I frowned,
Or ran about the room and roared;
I might have simply sat and snored—
I rose politely in the club
And said, “I feel a little bored;
Will someone take me to a pub?”

The new world’s wisest did surround
Me; and it pains me to record
I did not think their views profound
Or their conclusions well assured;
Their simple life I can’t afford,
Besides, I do not like the grub—
I want a mash and sausage, “scored”—
Will someone take me to a pub?

I know where Men can still be found
Anger and clamorous accord,
And virtues growing from the ground,
And fellowship of beer and board,
And song, that is a sturdy cord,
And hope, that is a hardy shrub,
And goodness, that is God’s last word—
Will someone take me to a pub?

ENVOI

Prince, Bayard would have smashed his sword
To see the sort of knight you dub—
Is that the last of them—O Lord!—
Will someone take me to a pub?

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