Paradoxical always, Mr. Chesterton lives up to his reputation in this new collection of his poems. He has put into the book his whole paradoxical self—newspaper rhymester, with briefs like

Mince-Pies grant wishes: let each name his prize,
But as for us, we wish for more Mince-Pies;

anti-prohibition pamphleteer; Roman Catholic champion; foe of freakish modernist poetry; playboy of literature, with takeoffs on the classic poets, Wordsworth, Byron, Swinburne; master balladist, with his masterpiece, The Ballad of the White Horse in 100 pages; biting critic of nationalism, with his “The World State,” beginning,

Oh, how I love Humanity,
With love so pure and pringlish,
And how I hate the horrid French,
Who never will be English!

foe of war and war-makers, with poems like “Elegy in a Country Churchyard,” closing with

And they that rule in England,
In stately conclave met,
Alas, alas for England
They have no graves as yet;

true mystic, as in his poem “A Word,” beginning “A word came forth from Galilee, a word like to a star”; lover of beauty; battle against cranks—vegetarians, for instance.

All of Chesterton is here. Evidently this poet, unlike some others, has not looked forward to a time, a hundred years hence, when his poetic work might be weighed in the balance of critics, taking care that only his “best” is preserved. He is one poet who does not seem to take himself so very seriously. Every page of his book indicates that its author writes verse because he finds sheer delight in writing it—of all sorts, on all themes. And it is pleasant to run across just such a poet.

Chesterton can write tender poems, such as “The Song of the Children,” in which the little ones are grieving because

They have taken and slain our Brother,
And hanged Him on a tree.

He can write glorious, colorful poems, in ringing measures, as his “Lepanto,” beginning

White founts falling in the courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run.

Here is that brief poem, “The Donkey,” which upon its first publication was reprinted the English-speaking world over: the poem in which the despised beast of burden tells of its one glorious hour, when

There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

Whether Chesterton writes as a pure poet, as a religious mystic, as a foe of war and injustice, as a champion of freedom, as a literary critic, he always writes effectively; his words go straight home. And in none of his poems is he more effective than in those in which he calls for a rebuilding of the world on the basis of justice and good will and brotherhood. If there were no poems in this new volume except those in which he attacks war and the inhumanity of our so-called civilization, it would still be one of the great books of poetry of this decade. His poem, “The Buried City,” belongs in our new Bible of poetry, out of these times and for these times. Here is the first stanza of this tremendous appeal:

You that go forth upon the buried cities,
Whose witchcraft holds the withered kings together,
Seals up the very air of ancient seasons,
Like secret skies walled up from the world's weather;
You that dig up dead towns—arise and strive:
Strike through the slums and save the towns alive!