No wonder then that, when we seek awhile Relief and respite from War’s strident chorus, Few books more swiftly charm us to a smile, Few books more truly hearten and restore us Than his, whose art was potent to beguile Thousands of weary souls who came before us— No wonder, when the Huns, who ban our fiction, Were fain to free him from their malediction. LINES ON A NEW HISTORY Weary of MACAULAY, never nodding, Weary of the stodginess of STUBBS, Weary of the scientific plodding Of the school that only digs and grubs; I salute, with grateful admiration Foreign to the hireling eulogist, CHESTERTON’S red hot self-revelation In the guise of England’s annalist. Here is no parade of erudition, No pretence of calm judicial tone, But the stimulating ebullition Of a sort of humanized cyclone; Unafraid of flagrant paradoxes, Unashamed of often seeing red, Here’s a thinker who the compass boxes Standing most at ease upon his head. Yet with all this acrobatic frolic There’s a core of sanity behind Madness that is never melancholic, Passion never cruel or unkind; And, although his wealth of purple patches Some precisians may excessive deem, Still the decoration always matches Something rich and splendid in the theme. Not a textbook—that may be admitted— Full of dates and Treaties and of Pacts, For our author cannot be acquitted Of a liberal handling of his facts; But a stirring proof of Britain’s title, Less in Empire than in soul, of “Great,” And a frank and generous recital Of “the glories of our blood and State.” TO MY GODSON (_Aged six weeks._) Small bundle, enveloped in laces, For whom I stood sponsor last week, When you slept, with the pinkest of faces, And never emitted a squeak; Though vain is the task of illuming The Future’s inscrutable scroll, I cannot refrain from assuming A semi-prophetical _rôle_. I predict that in paths Montessorian Your infantile steps will be led, And with modes which are Phrygian and Dorian Your musical appetite fed; You’ll be taught how to dance by a Russian, “Eurhythmics” you’ll learn from a Swiss, How not to behave like a Prussian— No teaching is needed for this! Will you learn Esperanto at Eton? Or, if Eton by then is suppressed, Be sent to grow apples or wheat on A ranche in the ultimate West? Will you aim at a modern diploma In civics or commerce or stinks? Inhale the Wisconsin aroma Or think as the humanist thinks? Will you learn to play tennis from COVEY Or model your stroke on JAY GOULD? Will you play the piano like TOVEY Or by gramophone records be schooled? Will you golf, or will golfing be banished To answer the needs of the plough, And links from the landscape have vanished To pasture the sheep and the cow?