THE PRAISE OF DUST

THE PRAISE OF DUST

‘ What of vile dust ? ’ the preacher said.
Methought of the whole world woke,
The dead stone lived beneath my foot,
And my whole body spoke.

‘ You, that play tyrant to the dust,
And stamp its wrinkled face,
This patient star flings you not
Far into homeless space,

‘ Come down out of your dusty shrine
The living dust to see,
The flowers that at your sermon’s end
Stand blazing silently.

‘ Rich white and blood-red blossom ; stones,
Lichens like fire encrust ;
A gleam of blue, a glare of gold,
The vision of the dust.

‘ Pass them all by : till, as you come
Where, at a city’s edge,
Under a tree—I know it well—
Under a lattice hedge,

‘ The sunshine falls on the brown head.
You, too, O cold of clay,
Eater of stones, may haply hear
The trumpets of that day

‘ When God to all His paladins
By His own splendour swore
To make a faiere face than heaven,
Of dust and nothing more.’

(G. K. Chesterton)

Taken from Church, R. and M. Bozman, ed. Poems of Our Time (1900—). London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1950. p. 49.