Page:Poems (1915) G K Chesterton.djvu/22

 And when the pedants bade us mark

What cold mechanic happenings

Must come; our souls said in the dark,

"Belike; but there are likelier things."

Likelier across these flats afar,

These sulky levels smooth and free,

The drums shall crash a waltz of war

And Death shall dance with Liberty;

Likelier the barricades shall blare

Slaughter below and smoke above,

And death and hate and hell declare

That men have found a thing to love.

Far from your sunny uplands set

I saw the dream; the streets I trod

The lit straight streets shot out and met

The starry streets that point to God;

This legend of an epic hour

A child I dreamed, and dream it still,

Under the great grey water-tower

That strikes the stars on Campden Hill.