Explore "Sonnet" by G.K. Chesterton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
ON HEARING A LANDLORD ACCUSED (FALSELY, FOR / ALL THE BARD CAN SAY) OF NEGLECTING ONE OF THE / NUMEROUS WHITE HORSES THAT WERE OR WERE NOT / CONNECTED WITH ALFRED THE GREAT
If you have picked your lawn of leaves and snails, / If you have told your valet, even with oaths, / Once a week or so, to brush your clothes.
If you have dared to clean your teeth, or nails, / While the Horse upon the holy mountain fails -- / Then God that Alfred to his earth betrothes / Send on you screaming all that honour loathes, / Horsewhipping, Hounsditch, debts, and _Daily Mails_.
Can you not even conserve? For if indeed / The White Horse fades; then closer creeps the fight / When we shall scour the face of England white, / Plucking such men as you up like a weed, / And fling them far beyond a shaft shot right / When Wessex went to battle for the creed.