Page:Poems (1915) G K Chesterton.djvu/107

 Never did even philanthropy

Enrich a man more rapidly:

'Twas he that stopped the Strike in Coal,

For hungry children racked his soul;

To end their misery there and then

He filled the mines with Chinamen—

Sat in that House that broke the Kings,

And voted for all sorts of things—

And rose from Under-Sec. to Sec.

With scarce a murmur or a check.

Some grumbled. Growlers who gave less

Than generous worship to success,

The little printers in Dundee

Who got ten years for blasphemy,

(Although he let them off with seven)

Respect him rather less than heaven.

No matter. This can still be said:

Never to supernatural dread,

Never to unseen deity,

Did Sir John Grubby bend the knee;

Never did dream of hell or wrath

Turn Viscount Grubby from his path;

Nor was he bribed by fabled bliss

To kneel to any world but this.

The curate lives in Camden Town,

His lap still empty of renown,

And still across the waste of years

John Grubby, in the House of Peers,

Faces that curate, proud and free,

And never sits upon his knee.