Explore "Blessed are the Peacemakers" by G.K. Chesterton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Of old with a divided heart / I saw my people's pride expand, / Since a man's soul is torn apart / By mother earth and fatherland.
I knew, through many a tangled tale, / Glory and truth not one but two: / King, Constable, and Amirail / Took me like trumpets: but I knew
A blacker thing than blood's own dye / Weighed down great Hawkins on the sea; / And Nelson turned his blindest eye / On Naples and on liberty.
Therefore to you my thanks, O throne, / O thousandfold and frozen folk, / For whose cold frenzies all your own / The Battle of the Rivers broke;
Who have no faith a man could mourn.
Nor freedom any man desires; / But in a new clean light of scorn / Close up my quarrel with my sires;
Who bring my English heart to me, / Who mend me like a broken toy; / Till I can see you fight and flee, / And laugh as if I were a boy.