To The Jews

Oh people bespitten and rifled

Of the fruits that were gone by toil

Have revenge upon those who have trifled

With you, come down to your spoil

Ye are firm in your faith that we scoff at

Ye are strong in your hope that we scorn

While our angels are cast into Tophet

Our creed is outworn

Ye have conquered the night of your longing,

Ye have conquered and shown yourself brave,

Ye have risen in multitudes thronging

When we though you pressed down to the grave.

The hands of Christ’s people shall stab us,

Support his pale godhead who can.

O Caiaphas, Annas, Barabbas,

Behold ye the man

The hands of the lord may quicken

New creeds, but one thing shall be sure,

When the God of the Christians is stricken,

The God of the Jew shall endure.

When Christ shall be dead as Apollo,

Buried in aeons in mouldering sod,

The children of Jacob shall follow

The children of God.

The above poem was written by Chesterton in pencil on lined school book paper during his schooling at St. Paul’s.

France

Because for once the sword broke in her hand,

  The words she spoke seemed perished for a space;

All wrong was brazen, and in every land

  The tyrants walked abroad with naked face.

The waters turned to blood, as rose the Star

  Of evil Fate denying all release.

The rulers smote, the feeble crying "War!"

  The usurers robbed, the naked crying "Peace!"

And her own feet were caught in nets of gold,

  And her own soul profaned by sects that squirm,

And little men climbed her high seats and sold

  Her honour to the vulture and the worm.

And she seemed broken and they thought her dead,

  The Overmen, so brave against the weak.

Has your last word of sophistry been said,

  O cult of slaves? Then it is hers to speak.

Clear the slow mists from her half-darkened eyes,

  As slow mists parted over Valmy fell,

As once again her hands in high surprise

  Take hold upon the battlements of Hell.