A Second Childhood
Easter 2: 19th April, 2015
Fr Graeme Brennan, Assistant Priest at St Peter's, Eastern Hill
In his homily on Sunday 19th April, Fr Graeme read the poem A Second Childhood from The Collected Poems of G. K. Chesterton. In response to a number of requests for access to this poem, it is reproduced here.
It can also be found at:
The Literature Network and in goodreads.
A Second Childhood
- When all my days are ending
- and I have no song to sing,
- I think that I shall not be too old
- to stare at everything;
- as I stared once at a nursery door
- or a tall tree and a swing.
- Wherein God's ponderous mercy hangs
- on all my sins and me,
- because he does not take away
- the terror from the tree
- and stones still shine along the road
- that are and cannot be.
- Men grow too old for love, my love,
- men grow too old for wine,
- but I shall not grow too old to see
- unearthly daylight shine,
- changing my chamber's dust to snow
- till I doubt if it be mine.
- Behold, the crowning mercies melt,
- the first surprises stay;
- and in my dross is dropped a gift
- for which I dare not pray:
- that a man grow used to grief and joy
- but not to night and day.
- Men grow too old for love, my love,
- men grow too old for lies;
- but I shall not grow too old to see
- enormous night arise,
- a cloud that is larger than the world
- and a monster made of eyes.
- Nor am I worthy to unloose
- the latchet of my shoe;
- or shake the dust from off my feet
- or the staff that bears me through
- on ground that is too good to last,
- too solid to be true.
- Men grow too old to woo, my love,
- men grow too old to wed;
- but I shall not grow too old to see
- hung crazily overhead
- incredible rafters when I wake
- and I find that I am not dead.
- A thrill of thunder in my hair:
- though blackening clouds be plain,
- still I am stung and startled
- by the first drop of the rain:
- romance and pride and passion pass
- and these are what remain.
- Strange crawling carpets of the grass,
- wide windows of the sky;
- so in this perilous grace of God
- with all my sins go I:
- and things grow new though I grow old,
- though I grow old and die.
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Views is a
publication of
St Peter's Eastern Hill, Melbourne Australia.
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