Explore "The Wild Knight and other Poems: the World's Lover" by G.K. Chesterton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
My eyes are full of lonely mirth: / Reeling with want and worn with scars, / For pride of every stone on earth, / I shake my spear at all the stars.
A live bat beats my crest above, / Lean foxes nose where I have trod, / And on my naked face the love / Which is the loneliness of God.
Outlawed: since that great day gone by -- / When before prince and pope and queen / I stood and spoke a blasphemy -- / 'Behold the summer leaves are green.'
They cursed me: what was that to me / Who in that summer darkness furled, / With but an owl and snail to see, / Had blessed and conquered all the world?
They bound me to the scourging-stake, / They laid their whips of thorn on me; / I wept to see the green rods break, / Though blood be beautiful to see.
Beneath the gallows' foot abhorred / The crowds cry 'Crucify! ' and 'Kill! ' / Higher the priests sing, 'Praise the Lord, / The warlock dies'; and higher still
Shall heaven and earth hear one cry sent / Even from the hideous gibbet height, / 'Praise to the Lord Omnipotent, / The vultures have a feast to-night. '