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April 20th, 2006
08:51 am - ...And Now For Something Completely Different
I was reminded, unexpectedly, of Chesterton's The Ballad of the White Horse last night, and in order to convince all of you that that man could write, I will give you a sample of that work, which I believe to be among the greatest rallying speeches in English literature, right up there with the St. Crispin's Day soliloquy.
And Alfred answered, drinking,
And gravely, without blame,
"Nor bear I boast of scald or king,
The thing I bear is a lesser thing,
But comes in a better name.
"Out of the mouth of the Mother of God,
More than the doors of doom,
I call the muster of Wessex men
From grassy hamlet or ditch or den
To break and be broken, God knows when,
But I have seen for whom.
"Out of the mouth of the Mother of God
Like a little word come I;
For I go gathering Christian men
From sunken paving and ford and fen,
To die in a battle, God knows when,
By God, but I know why.
"And this is the word of Mary,
The word of the world's desire:
'No more of comfort shall ye get,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.'"
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Comments:
I'm not an enormous Chesterton fan, for various reasons, but there's one little piece I liked when I read it as a child, mainly because it mentioned an animal. The Donkey.Yeah, he could write. But, being as I am a secular humanist/naturalist, his writing doesn't strike the intended chord with me.
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/8152544/1432886) | | From: | ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) kniedzw |
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| Date: | April 20th, 2006 03:18 pm (UTC) |
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| | Re: Chesterton. | (Link) |
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Yeah, he could write. But, being as I am a secular humanist/naturalist, his writing doesn't strike the intended chord with me. I can totally understand. He was rather unabashedly religious. Being something of a vaguely secular agnostic, I find him somewhat overbearing at times, but I have been consistantly impressed by his prose and his wit. Plus, I'm rather fond of people who make me test my underlying assumptions about the world, which he tends to do. |
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