Sunday, December 26, 2010
There Is No Reaction
G.K. Chesterton, By a Reactionary:
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Smoke rolls in stinking, suffocating wrackVangelt (line 9) = van (of) + gelt (money).
On Shakespeare's land, turning the green one black;
The crowds that once to harvest home would come
Hope for no harvest and possess no home,
While poor tramps that liked a little ale,
In natural procession pass to gaol;
Because the world must, like the tramp, move on,
There does not seem much else that can be done.
As Lord Vangelt said in the House of Peers:
'None of us want Reaction.' (Tory cheers).
So doubtful doctors punch and prod and prick
A man thought dead; and when there's not a kick
Left in the corpse, no twitch or faint contraction,
The doctors say: 'See ... there is no Reaction.'
