Poetry Saturday

Ria is out of town this weekend, so if you all don't mind I'll provide the poetry myself. In keeping with the irregularity of it all, this poem is by Belloc.

I like to read myself to sleep in Bed,
A thing that every honest man has done
At one time or another, it is said,
But not as something in the usual run;
Now I from ten years old to forty one
Have never missed a night: and what I need
To buck me up is Gilbert Chesterton,
(The only man I regularly read).

The Illustrated London News is wed
To letter press as stodgy as a bun,
The Daily News might just as well be dead
The ‘Idler’ has a tawdry kind of fun,
The ‘Speaker’ is a sort of Sally Lunn,
The ‘World’ is a small unpleasant weed;
I take them all because of Chesterton,
(The only man I regularly read).

The memories of the Duke of Beachy Head,
The memoirs of Lord Hildebrand (his son)
Are things I could have written on my head,
So are the memories of Comte de Mun,
And as for novels written by the ton,
I’d burn the bloody lot! I know the breed!
And get me back to be with Chesterton
(The only man I regularly read).

Envoi

Prince, have you read the book called “Thoughts upon
The Ethos of the Athanasian Creed”?
No matter - it is not by Chesterton
(The only man I regularly read).