Explore "A Ballade of a Book-Reviewer" by G.K. Chesterton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I have not read a rotten page / Of "Sex-Hate" or "The Social Test,"
And here comes "Husks" and "Heritage".
O Moses, give us all a rest!
"Ethics of Empire"! . I protest / I will not even cut the strings, / I'll read "Jack Redskin on the Quest"
And feed my brain with better things.
Somebody wants a Wiser Age / (He also wants me to invest); / Somebody likes the Finnish Stage / Because the Jesters do not jest; / And grey with dust is Dante's crest, / The bell of Rabelais soundless swings; / And the winds come out of the west / And feed my brain with better things.
Lord of our laughter and our rage.
Look on us with our sins oppressed!
I, too, have trodden mine heritage, / Wickedly wearying of the best.
Burn from my brain and from my breast / Sloth, and the cowardice that clings, / And stiffness and the soul's arrest: / And feed my brain with better things.
ENVOI
Prince, you are host and I am guest, / Therefore I shrink from cavillings.
But I should have that fizz suppressed / And feed my brain with better things.