The Donkey

[stoutfellow]

"When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil’s walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet."

-G. K. Chesterton

Comments

[ndrosen]

I know that poem, and I memorized “Lepanto” as a teenager.

[stoutfellow]

So did I. Purely as a matter of sound, "Lepanto" is gorgeous. Nowadays, I remember the first verse, most of the second, and fragments of the rest. "Giants and the genii / Multiplex of wing and eye / Whose strong obedience broke the sky / When Solomon was king!"