Originally Posted by
Tyr-Ziu Saxnot
I was bound and self-sworn to find inspiration today to sling a bit of ink.
I then noticed the G.K Chesterton quote here and then it hit me. My
usually lazy muse woke for a moment and spit at me the first stanza.
The rest of the story is below ... Tyr
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*****
As a poet I happily take inspiration wherever I may find it.
In this case, from the G. K. Chesterton quote shown above
Made me think about age , youth , life and the sweet
imagination of youth. Thus my muse spouted out the opening
stanza to me, I remembered this old poem by G.K. and after
that it was off to the races I go.. RJL
*****
Gold Leaves
---- by G. K. Chesterton
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.
*****
Tis Your Dream, Stop Wallowing In Your Bed
Alas! My years flown by, my sight grown dim
When the morn its soft glow, diminishes so
I sigh and seek to my sails slightly trim
For heart and soul in me cheerfully flows.
I look, in my curious gaze I see
Apparition, else imaginary thought
Pale shadow staying in fine tune with me
Cause to surmise, is it ghost I have caught?
Not quite sure, and then deciding to ask
I summon a hero's courage to say
Are you a ghost that in my limelight basks
If so, with anger I say fly away!
First time ever, it stood perfectly still
Next a hearty laugh, then a calm voice said
Sleepyhead, wake up and maybe I will
Tis your dream, stop wallowing in your bed!
Robert J. Lindley, 12-19-2021
Rhyme, a tribute to G. K. Chesterton
( When inspiration sparks a poetic and vivid imagination )
Copyright © Robert Lindley | Year Posted 2021
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edit:
Adding this my favorite G.K. poem --Tyr
The Black Virgin
____ by G. K. Chesterton
One in thy thousand statues we salute thee
On all thy thousand thrones acclaim and claim
Who walk in forest of thy forms and faces
Walk in a forest calling on one name
And, most of all, how this thing may be so
Who know thee not are mystified to know
That one cries "Here she stands" and one cries "Yonder"
And thou wert home in heaven long ago.
Burn deep in Bethlehem in the golden shadows,
Ride above Rome upon the horns of stone,
From low Lancastrian or South Saxon shelters
Watch through dark years the dower that was shine own:
Ghost of our land, White Lady of Walsinghame,
Shall they not live that call upon thy name
If an old song on a wild wind be blowing
Crying of the holy country whence they came?
Root deep in Chartres the roses blown of glass
Burning above thee in the high vitrailles,
On Cornish crags take for salute of swords
O'er peacock seas the far salute of sails,
Glooming in bronze or gay in painted wood,
A great doll given when the child is good,
Save that She gave the Child who gave the doll,
In whom all dolls are dreams of motherhood.
I have found thee like a little shepherdess
Gay with green ribbons; and passed on to find
Michael called Angel hew the Mother of God
Like one who fills a mountain with a mind:
Molten in silver or gold or garbed in blue,
Or garbed in red where the inner robe burns through,
Of the King's daughter glorious within:
Change shine unchanging light with every hue.
Clothed with the sun or standing on the moon
Crowned with the stars or single, a morning star,
Sunlight and moonlight are thy luminous shadows,
Starlight and twilight thy refractions are,
Lights and half-lights and all lights turn about thee,
But though we dazed can neither see nor doubt thee,
Something remains. Nor can man live without it
Nor can man find it bearable without thee.
There runs a dark thread through the tapestries
That time has woven with all the tints of time
Something not evil but grotesque and groping,
Something not clear; not final; not sublime;
Quaint as dim pattern of primal plant or tree
Or fish, the legless elfins of the sea,
Yet rare as this shine image in ebony
Being most strange in its simplicity.
Rare as the rushing of the wild black swans
The Romans saw; or rocks remote and grim
Where through black clouds the black sheep runs accursed
And through black clouds the Shepherd follows him.
By the black oak of the aeon-buried grove
By the black gems of the miner's treasure-trove
Monsters and freaks and fallen stars and sunken-
Most holy dark, cover our uncouth love.
From shine high rock look down on Africa
The living darkness of devouring green
The loathsome smell of life unquenchable,
Look on low brows and blinking eyes between,
On the dark heart where white folk find no place,
On the dark bodies of an antic race,
On all that fear thy light and love thy shadow,
Turn thou the mercy of thy midnight face.
This also is in thy spectrum; this dark ray;
Beyond the deepening purples of thy Lent
Darker than violet vestment; dark and secret
Clot of old night yet cloud of heaven sent:
As the black moon of some divine eclipse,
As the black sun of the Apocalypse,
As the black flower that blessed Odysseus back
From witchcraft; and he saw again the ships.
In all thy thousand images we salute thee,
Claim and acclaim on all thy thousand thrones
Hewn out of multi-colored rocks and risen
Stained with the stored-up sunsets in all tones-
If in all tones and shades this shade I feel,
Come from the black cathedrals of Castille
Climbing these flat black stones of Catalonia,
To thy most merciful face of night I kneel.
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