“The only man I regularly read”...

Belloc, Chesterton and unknown man - 1932

I LIKE to read myself to sleep in Bed,

A thing that every honest man has done

At one time or another, it is said,

But not as something in the usual run;

Now I from ten years old to forty one

Have never missed a night: and what I need

To buck me up is Gilbert Chesterton,

(The only man I regularly read).

The Illustrated London News is wed

To letter press as stodgy as a bun,

The Daily News might just as well be dead,

The ‘Idler’ has a tawdry kind of fun,

The ‘Speaker’ is a sort of Sally Lunn,

The ‘World’ is like a small unpleasant weed;

I take them all because of Chesterton,

(The only man I regularly read).

The memories of the Duke of Beach Head,

The memories of Lord Hildebrand (his son)

Are things I could have written on my head,

So are the memories of the Comte de Mun,

And as for novels written by the ton,

I’d burn the bloody lot! I know the Breed!

And get me back to with Chesterton

(The only man I regularly read).

ENVOI

Prince, have you read a book called “Thoughts upon

The Ethos of the Athanasian Creed”?

No matter—it is not by Chesterton

(The only man I regularly read).

A nameless Ballade by Hilaire Belloc (quoted in Return to Chesterton, by Maisie Ward, p. 131.)