Vitameatavegamin

Fa-So-La-La

Well, I woke up this morning thinking about G.K. Chesterton, specificaly The Ballad of the White Horse. I was thinking about it so much, in fact, that I got the book and reread my favorite passages, and when somebody walked in I pretended I was still asleep. :-) If I were wise I would have heeded the words of Lord Byron (I think) who said "Oh, what a tangled web we weave/when we first practise to deceive!" But I am not wise, and furthermore I don't take advise from Lord Byron. He was a nut. :-)

Anyway, I was amazed as always at Chesterton's ability to stay relavent to all men. It's been a almost a century since he wrote, yet he sounds like he was writing for and about us here in the 21st century. Here is a sample-- this is from the last book of Ballad, and it is Alfred, who has spent his life keeping the Danes out of England, saying that they will return--

"They shall not come with warships
They shall not waste with brands,
But books shall be all their eating,
And ink be on their hands.

"Not with the humor of hunters
Or savage skill in war,
Strings shall they make of beasts and birds,
And wheels of wind and star.

"They shall come mild as monkish clerks,
With many a scroll and pen;
And backward shall ye turn and gaze,
Desiring one of Alfred's days,
When pagans still were men.

". . . By this sign you shall know them,
The breaking of the sword,
And Man no more a free knight,
That loves or hates his lord.

"Yea, this shall be the sign of them,
The sign of the dying fire;
And Man made like a half-wit,
That knows not of his sire.

"What though they come with scroll and pens,
And grave as a shaven clerk,
By this sign you shall know them,
That they ruin and make dark;

By all men bond to Nothing,
Being slaves without a lord,
By one blind idiot world oceyed,
Too blind to be abhorred;

"By terror and the cruel tales
Of curse in bone and kin,
By weird and weakness winning,
Accursed from the beginning,
By detail of the sinning,
And denial of the sin;

"By thought a crawling ruin,
By life a leaping mire,
By a broken heart in the breast of the world,
And the end of the world's desire;

"By God and man dishonored,
By death and life made vain,
Know ye the old barbarian,
The barbarian come again--

"When is great talk of trend and tide,
And wisdom and destiny,
Hail that undying heathen
That is sadder than the sea."

Amazing, hmmmmmm? I love the idea that the heathens will bring with them deadness and coldness-- they are 'sadder than the sea.' This is so true-- we are living in the age Alfred was speaking of, and the heathens are dead and cold to joy, I think. That is what has brought on the massive entertainment system-- the 'heathens' of today don't know how to be joyful, so they pay Hollywood to try and make them happy. And it doesn't work. Just look at the 'Outrageously happy' post-- and be joyful! Moping around, according to Alfred, is a sign of being a heathen! Christians should be joyful-- we've got a better reason to than any other people in the world.