Explore "In Memoriam P. D" by G.K. Chesterton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
NICE, JANUARY 30, 1914.
If any in an island cradle curled / Of comfort, may make offerings to you, / Who in the day of all denial blew / A bugle through the blackness of the world,
An English hand would touch your shroud, in trust / That truth again be told in English speech.
And we too yet may practise what we preach, / Though it were practising the bayonet thrust.
Cutting that giant neck from sand to sand, / From sea to sea; it was a little thing / Beside your sudden shout and sabre-swing / That cut the throat of thieves in every land.
Heed not if half-wits mock your broken blade: / Mammon our master doeth all things ill.
You are the Fool that charged a windmill. Still, / The Miller is a Knave; and was afraid.
Lay down your sword. Ruin will know her own.
Let each small statesman sow his weak wild oat, / Or turn his coat to decorate his coat, / Or take the throne and perish by the throne.
Lay down your sword. And let the White Flag fade / To grey; and let the Red Flag fade to pink, / For these that climb and climb; and cannot sink / So deep as death and honour, Deroulede.