Chesterton

Chesterton:

From The Ballad of the White Horse:

"One man shall drive a hundred,
As the dead kings drave;
Before me rocking hosts be riven,
And battering cohorts backwards driven,
For I am the first king known of Heaven
That has been struck like a slave."

...

Roaring they went o'er the Roman wall,
And roaring up the lane,
Their torches tossed a ladder of fire,
Higher their hymn was heard and higher,
More sweet for hate and for heart's desire,
And up in the northern scrub and brier,
They fell upon the Dane.

And so did we, not so long ago. Like Geraint, struck with no just cause. So we rode to Afghanistan, and Iraq, and the corners of the world.

One man can drive a hundred, we have learned. The 'sweet hymns of hate' have faded with the years, and now we look upon an Iraq made freer and finer than it ever dared dream; but an Afghanistan in many ways little better than it was, for all we have done.

No longer full of wrath, where to from here? Is it enough? Russia is resurgent, strikes down our allies, sends heavy bombers into the Western hemisphere for the first time in history -- but her demographics fail. The Islamic world rises, but that is hope as much as peril. Iraq is surely a great hope; and yet we look at Pakistan, and Africa, and Iran, again at Russia.

And each with a small, far, bird-like sight
Saw the high folly of the fight;
And though strange joys had grown in the night,
Despair grew with the day.

And when white dawn crawled through the wood,
Like cold foam of a flood,
Then weakened every warrior's mood,
In hope, though not in hardihood;
And each man sorrowed as he stood
In the fashion of his blood.

For the Saxon Franklin sorrowed
For the things that had been fair;
For the dear dead woman, crimson-clad,
And the great feasts and the friends he had;
But the Celtic prince's soul was sad
For the things that never were.
...

Then Eldred of the idle farm
Leaned on his ancient sword,
As fell his heavy words and few;
And his eyes were of such alien blue
As gleams where the Northman saileth new
Into an unknown fiord.

"I was a fool and wasted ale--
My slaves found it sweet;
I was a fool and wasted bread,
And the birds had bread to eat.

"The kings go up and the kings go down,
And who knows who shall rule;
Next night a king may starve or sleep,
But men and birds and beasts shall weep
At the burial of a fool.

"O, drunkards in my cellar,
Boys in my apple tree,
The world grows stern and strange and new,
And wise men shall govern you,
And you shall weep for me.

"But yoke me my own oxen,
Down to my own farm;
My own dog will whine for me,
My own friends will bend the knee,
And the foes I slew openly
Have never wished me harm."

...

But Colan.... said, "And when did Britain
Become your burying-yard?

"Before the Romans lit the land,
When schools and monks were none,
We reared such stones to the sun-god
As might put out the sun.

"The tall trees of Britain
We worshipped and were wise,
But you shall raid the whole land through
And never a tree shall talk to you,
Though every leaf is a tongue taught true
And the forest is full of eyes.

"On one round hill to the seaward
The trees grow tall and grey
And the trees talk together
When all men are away.

"O'er a few round hills forgotten
The trees grow tall in rings,
And the trees talk together
Of many pagan things.

"Yet I could lie and listen
With a cross upon my clay,
And hear unhurt for ever
What the trees of Britain say."

The fools and the cheerful mad have the better part of this world. Perhaps the best thing is to resolve to be one or the other, and lay aside all fear. If the other choice is 'the despair that grows with the day,' then surely this is best. Hope and faith may sometimes seem like little more than foolishness or madness, but these are two of the best of things.