A Certain Evening

Gilbert Keith Chesterton 1874 (Kensington, London) – 1936 (Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire)



That night the whole world mingled,
The souls were babes at play,
And angel danced with devil.
And God cried, 'Holiday!'
  
The sea had climbed the mountain peaks,
And shouted to the stars
To come to play: and down they came
Splashing in happy wars.
  
The pine grew apples for a whim,
The cart-horse built a nest;
The oxen flew, the flowers sang,
The sun rose in the west.
  
And 'neath the load of many worlds,
The lowest life God made
Lifted his huge and heavy limbs
And into heaven strayed.
  
To where the highest life God made
Before His presence stands;
But God himself cried, 'Holiday!'
And she gave me both her hands.
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Submitted on August 03, 2020

Modified on April 09, 2023

35 sec read
25

Quick analysis:

Scheme XAXA XXXX XBXB XCXC CDAD
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 607
Words 120
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was an influential English writer of the early 20th century His diverse output included journalism philosophy poetry biography Christian apologetics fantasy and detective fiction Gilbert Keith Chesterton KC*SG was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary and art critic. He has been referred to as the "prince of paradox". Time magazine observed of his writing style: "Whenever possible Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories—first carefully turning them inside out." more…

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