Page:Poems (1915) G K Chesterton.djvu/118



E never saw you, like our sires,

For whom your face was Freedom's face,

Nor know what office-tapes and wires

With such strong cords may interlace;

We know not if the statesmen then

Were fashioned as the sort we see,

We know that not under your ken

Did England laugh at Liberty.

Yea, this one thing is known of you,

We know that not till you were dumb,

Not till your course was thundered through,

Did Mammon see his kingdom come.

The songs of theft, the swords of hire,

The clerks that raved, the troops that ran

The empire of the world's desire,

The dance of all the dirt began.

The happy jewelled alien men

Worked then but as a little leaven;

From some more modest palace then

The Soul of Dives stank to Heaven.

But when they planned with lisp and leer

Their careful war upon the weak,

They smote your body on its bier,

For surety that you could not speak.