G.K. Chesterton's Birthday

. . . . .isn't today. It was yesterday, as Donna Marie very kindly reminded me. And I - oh, the shame of it - didn't make a mention of it on the day.

Time to make amends to G.K., the inspiration, the fons et origo of this blog:

A Child of the Snows

There is heard a hymn when the panes are dim,
And never before or again,
When the nights are strong with a darkness long,
And the dark is alive with rain.

Never we know but in sleet and in snow,
The place where the great fires are,
That the midst of the earth is a raging mirth
And the heart of the earth a star.

And at night we win to the ancient inn
Where the child in the frost is furled,
We follow the feet where all souls meet
At the inn at the end of the world.

The gods lie dead where the leaves lie red,
For the flame of the sun is flown,
The gods lie cold where the leaves lie gold,
And a Child comes forth alone.
- G.K. Chesterton



Comradeship and serious joy are not interludes in our travel; but . . .rather our travels are interludes in comradeship and joy, which through God shall endure for ever. The inn does not point to the road; the road points to the inn. And all roads point at last to an ultimate inn, where we shall meet Dickens and all his characters; and when we drink again it shall be from the great flagons in the tavern at the end of the world.

[The final paragraph of Chesterton’s “Charles Dickens”.]