Page:Poems (1915) G K Chesterton.djvu/100

 Lest men should mark how sleepy is the nod

That drills the dreadful images of God!

Walter, be wise! avoid the wild and new,

The Constitution is the game for you.

Walter, beware! scorn not the gathering throng,

It suffers, yet it may not suffer wrong,

It suffers, yet it cannot suffer Long.

And if you goad it these grey rules to break,

For a few pence, see that you do not wake

Death and the splendour of the scarlet cap,

Boston and Valmy, Yorktown and Jemmappes,

Freedom in arms, the riding and the routing,

The thunder of the captains and the shouting,

All that lost riot that you did not share—

And when that riot comes—you will be there.