Answers to the Poets

The Skylark Replies to Wordsworth

Original Text

Chesterton, G. K. The Collected Poems of G. K. Chesterton. London: Methuen, 1933: 38-39.

(As it might have appeared to Byron)

1Ephemeral minstrel, staring at the sky,

2 Dost thou despise the earth where wrongs abound,

3Or, eyeing me, hast thou the other eye

4 Still on the Court, with pay-day coming round,

5That pension that could bring thee down at will

6Those rebel wings composed, that protest still?

7Past the trace of meaning and beyond

8 Mount, darling babbler, that pay-prompted strain

9'Twixt thee and Kings a never-failing bond

10 Swells not the less their carnage o'er the plain.

11Type of the wise, who drill but never fight,

12True to the kindred points of Might and Right.

Publication Start Year

1932

Publication Notes

"New Poems", The Collected poems of G. K. Chesterton. New York : Dodd, Mead, 1932.

RPO poem Editors

Ian Lancashire, assisted by Ana Berdinskikh

RPO Edition

2009

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