• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Poetry Catalog

We honor great poets. We honor great poetry.

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Submit Your Work
  • Writers
  • Advertising / Subscription

The Old Song, By: G.K. Chesterton

February 20, 2023 by Editors

The Old Song, By: G.K. Chesterton

(On the Embankment in stormy weather.)

    A livid sky on London
    And like iron steeds that rear
    A shock of engines halted,
    And I knew the end was near:
    And something said that far away, over the hills and far away,
    There came a crawling thunder and the end of all things here.
    For London Bridge is broken down, broken down, broken down,
    As digging lets the daylight on the sunken streets of yore,
    The lightning looked on London town, the broken bridge of London town,
    The ending of a broken road where men shall go no more.

    I saw the kings of London town,
    The kings that buy and sell,
    That built it up with penny loaves
    And penny lies as well:
    And where the streets were paved with gold, the shrivelled paper shone for gold,
    The scorching light of promises that pave the streets of hell.
    For penny loaves will melt away, melt away, melt away,
    Mock the mean that haggled in the grain they did not grow;
    With hungry faces in the gate, a hundred thousand in the gate,
    A thunder-flash on London and the finding of the foe.

    I heard the hundred pin-makers
    Slow down their racking din,
    Till in the stillness men could hear
    The dropping of the pin:
    And somewhere men without the wall, beneath the wood, without the wall,
    Had found the place where London ends and England can begin.
    For pins and needles bend and break, bend and break, bend and break,
    Faster than the breaking spears or the bending of the bow
    Of pageants pale in thunder-light, ‘twixt thunder-load and thunder-light,
    The Hundreds marching on the hills in the wars of long ago.

    I saw great Cobbett riding,
    The horseman of the shires;
    And his face was red with judgment
    And a light of Luddite fires:
    And south to Sussex and the sea the lights leapt up for liberty,
    The trumpet of the yeomanry, the hammer of the squires;
    For bars of iron rust away, rust away, rust away,
    Rend before the hammer and the horseman riding in,
    Crying that all men at the last, and at the worst and at the last,
    Have found the place where England ends and England can begin.

    His horse-hoofs go before you,
    Far beyond your bursting tyres;
    And time is bridged behind him
    And our sons are with our sires.
    A trailing meteor on the Downs he rides above the rotting towns,
    The Horseman of Apocalypse, the Rider of the Shires.
    For London Bridge is broken down, broken down, broken down;
    Blow the horn of Huntingdon from Scotland to the sea–
    … Only a flash of thunder-light, a flying dream of thunder-light,
    Had shown under the shattered sky a people that were free.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest

Related

Filed Under: Poems

Get Every Post In Your Inbox 😳

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.
(This is not the newsletter.)

Primary Sidebar

Never Miss A Poem (Newsletter)

Be Social

  • X
  • Facebook

Top Posts & Pages

  • No Religion In Heaven, By: John RC Potter
    No Religion In Heaven, By: John RC Potter
  • Hart-Leap Well, By: William Wordsworth
    Hart-Leap Well, By: William Wordsworth
  • Incident At Bruges, By: William Wordsworth
    Incident At Bruges, By: William Wordsworth
  • Memorials Of A Tour On The Continent, 1820 - Dedication, By: William Wordsworth
    Memorials Of A Tour On The Continent, 1820 - Dedication, By: William Wordsworth
  • The Mimic, By: Mary Bone
    The Mimic, By: Mary Bone
  • Reading Wisdom, By: Geoffrey Heptonstall
    Reading Wisdom, By: Geoffrey Heptonstall
  • Filled, By: Erin Jamieson
    Filled, By: Erin Jamieson
  • Written In Durham, By: Matt Morris Hawkins
    Written In Durham, By: Matt Morris Hawkins

Advertising/Subscribing = Loving

Buy Me A Coffee

Sign up for the newsletter. Get a gift.

Footer

Made with ❤ in Lubbock, TX.

Poetry Catalog Sponsors

Haiku Examples

Search

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in