atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale

The last time I posted Chesterton, I said:

I've always had a soft spot for Gilbert. I rather blame Neil Gaiman for that, though I suppose I could easily have come to it on my own. And I like this poem; I like the way Chesterton talks about the world: it's dark and imperfect and hard to live in, but maybe it is worth living in, after all.

This is more of a poem about love than it is a poem about death -- in fact, it may not be about death at all. But it is about life, and about living life to its fullest, even after the ends of things.

It is something to have wept as we have wept,
It is something to have done as we have done,
It is something to have watched when all men slept,
And seen the stars which never see the sun.

It is something to have smelt the mystic rose,
Although it break and leave the thorny rods,
It is something to have hungered once as those
Must hunger who have ate the bread of gods.

To have seen you and your unforgotten face,
Brave as a blast of trumpets for the fray,
Pure as white lilies in a watery space,
It were something, though you went from me today.

To have known the things that from the weak are furled,
Perilous ancient passions, strange and high;
It is something to be wiser than the world,
It is something to be older than the sky.

In a time of sceptic moths and cynic rusts,
And fattened lives that of their sweetness tire
In a world of flying loves and fading lusts,
It is something to be sure of a desire.

Lo, blessed are our ears for they have heard;
Yea, blessed are our eyes for they have seen:
Let the thunder break on man and beast and bird
And the lightning. It is something to have been.

—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936), 'The Great Minimum'.