Read "The Great Minimum" by G.K. Chesterton online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It is something to have wept as we have wept, / It is something to have done as we have done, / It is something to have watched when all men slept, / And seen the stars which never see the sun.
It is something to have smelt the mystic rose, / Although it break and leave the thorny rods, / It is something to have hungered once as those / Must hunger who have ate the bread of gods.
To have seen you and your unforgotten face, / Brave as a blast of trumpets for the fray.
Pure as white lilies in a watery space, / It were something, though you went from me to-day.
To have known the things that from the weak are furled, / Perilous ancient passions, strange and high; / It is something to be wiser than the world, / It is something to be older than the sky.
In a time of sceptic moths and cynic rusts, / And fatted lives that of their sweetness tire, / In a world of flying loves and fading lusts, / It is something to be sure of a desire.
Lo, blessed are our ears for they have heard; / Yea, blessed are our eyes for they have seen: / Let thunder break on man and beast and bird / And the lightning. It is something to have been.